Needless to say, Willie loves drama. 

I could give you links to specific columns, but really. If you pick one Willie-looking column in the above link, you’ll get a taste of what I’m talking about. 

Indy was using a rollator at the time of his death. When he passed, Willie announced she could no longer walk without a rollator. 

Just stop. I can hear you, oohing and aahing out there. Saying Willie missed Indy so much, she clung to his walker as a memory. That I’m awful for not realizing it. 

That is not what happened. 

Indy died in December. By February, Willie had donated all of his clothes and given me his wedding ring. By summer, she had a boyfriend. 

So just stop. 

Willie insists her rollator accompany her everywhere.  

Which would be fine, but for a few issues. 

One, anywhere you might bring Willie does not involve a lot of walking. Her church? The size of an open-plan living room. Her hair salon? Roughly approximates the average family den. Her sister’s house? Willie walks 15 feet into the family room, takes up her perch on the sectional, and doesn’t move until it’s time to leave. 

“I need my rollator,” Willie says. 

“But Willie,” I always say, “I’m right here. I’ll walk with you.” 

“I need my rollator,” Willie always retorts. 

Which brings us to issue number two. 

Why do I resist packing Willie’s rollator? 

Well, have you ever been to a thrift store? Old shirts, older shoes, rickety tricycles, the odd comforter? 

Willie’s rollator looks like someone took the laser from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids to one of those stores, right-sizing it for an octogenarian to push around the Temple of Doom. 

Willie’s rollator has a basket under the seat. That basket holds a notepad and pencil for Willie to document the injustices I inflict upon her, the datebook for all the social engagements I don’t plan for her, a Tupperware of cookies, a handful of mini candy bars, napkins, a book, a magazine or two or seven, crumpled tissues, a Christmas ornament, and lists of phone numbers I sure hope don’t belong to more boyfriends. 

On top of the rollator seat is a cushion from the kitchen chairs at our old house. On top of that is a thick blue blanket, the provenance of which I am unsure. 

To collapse Willie’s rollator for storage in the trunk of a car, the blanket gets tucked in the backseat. Then the cushion is untied — both sides, remember! — from the seat and set atop the blanket. Next, the basket is removed from the rollator. 

Only then can the rollator be folded and stored. 

I’ve had transatlantic flights take off with less pomp and circumstance than Willie’s rollator on any given Sunday. 

The final issue with Willie’s walker is the lack of any rationale for its use. 

How do I know? 

Because one cold, blustery night in December, Willie walked a mile through Hatboro without the rollator. 

No sidewalks. One train track. Many intersections. 

When I pointed this out to her, Willie said, “Oh, well, I felt I’d become too dependent on it.” 

So she decided the optimal situation for a trial run of a rollator-free life was Byberry Road during the evening rush hour. 

Makes sense. 

So the rollator is not my favorite thing about Willie. 

I say that with zero irony. 

One day last summer, the seat on Willie’s rollator broke. The hinges were just — I don’t know — gone. The seat perched atop the basket, but without the hinges, it just slid all over the place. 

So I bought Willie a new rollator. Assembled it. Brought it to the Temple of Doom.  

Where I discovered somebody had kindly drilled new hinges onto Willie’s seat.  

I don’t know who did it. Maintenance, maybe. It wasn’t perfect – the seat wouldn’t open all the way, making the basket removal a little more of a headache. But for a rollator Willie didn’t even need, I appreciated the effort. 

Still, I tucked it away in a corner of Willie’s room. I transferred everything — Tupperware of cookies, Festivus notepad, Linus’s blue blanket — into Willie’s new rollator. 

In January, the new rollator broke. One of the handles irreparably collapsed in on itself.  

Do — do you guys think Willie is running some kind of secret senior citizen bumper car derby with rollators and walkers and wheelchairs? An elderly fight club? I mean, it’d be perfect — you can’t talk about fight club if you don’t remember fighting in fight club, right? 

Probably. That’s why Willie’s rollators keep breaking. 

With the new rollator dead, I resurrected the old rollator. The candy bars and kitchen cushion and Christmas ball all transferred back. 

But the new hinges so mysteriously drilled into the old rollator’s broken seat were themselves broken. If collapsing the rollator before had been a procedure, it now demanded an engineering degree.  

Willie needed a new rollator. 

Which I found frustrating. I’d already spent sixty bucks on Willie’s new rollator. As that had lasted all of six months, I was reluctant to go that cheap again. 

But. 

I didn’t exactly relish the idea of buying Willie a $200 rollator she didn’t need. Her finances aren’t limitless. 

Sorry.  

Willie’s friends’ finances aren’t limitless. 

I was in a quandary, paralyzed by the decision before me. Buy a cheap rollator? An expensive one? Tell Willie to knock it off and ditch the rollator? 

“I’m making this decision for you,” my husband said, tired of my perseverating. “Buy the expensive one. You know it’s the right answer.” 

So I emailed the Temple of Doom. Told them I knew Willie’s rollators were all broken. Told them I was ordering a new one. 

They — they hadn’t noticed anything. Willie’s rollators seem fine to them. 

Huh. 

They’re probably in fight club, too.