A Life in the Day of Rosemary Booker - The Woody Back to School ...

39
She fixes Joanna with her gimlet glare as she
approaches. “Bend over the desk,” she says in that
clipped voice that sounds like it could cut through
glass.
“I know the form, Ma’am,” responds Jojo
calmly without the slightest hint of fear in her voice.
While Jojo slides her upper torso across the
polished top of the front desk Patty unhurriedly takes
off her jacket and rolls up the sleeves of her silk
blouse. She crosses the room and opens the door to a
tallboy. Inside is an impressive array of canes, all
neatly racked like a collection of billiard cues. She
makes a considerable drama of selecting the stick
that she will use for the current mission. She tests out
two or three by flexing them between her hands and
swishing them through the air before announcing,
“this will do nicely”. All the while she continues to
smile gleefully.
The canes that Patty favors are from the new
generation in cane technology. The thirty-six inch
long rattan shafts are housed in straight-run nylon
handles that are covered with red and black striped
leather. According to the advertising literature that
accompanies them they pack twice the smart for half
the effort. You might ask yourselves how I know this
trivia but the Silver Fox has invested in several of
these items in preparation for our scheduled vacation.
Interestingly the brochure from the bespoke canemaker
located in Dublin claims that every cane has
been quality tested in real-life situations and come
with a one-year warranty. One has to wonder who