Crazy Old women

Last weekend, Angela and I headed off to Niagara Falls, which is only a 2 hour drive away from here. I thought it would be nice to see the Falls in Winter, which it was, but it was also bitterly cold, and snowing heavily. Luckily our hotel was just a street up from the Falls themselves, and right next to the Rainbow Bridge (which takes you over the river into America), so our time outside was fairly short, though we still got to walk up to the Canadian Falls, and over the bridge for a few minutes in the USA. The main highlight of our trip however, was not one of the wonders of the natural world. It was, in fact, an old lady in a casino.

Angela and the American Falls

After we’d managed to gamble away the tiny amount that we’d decided we could afford, we grabbed dinner in a restaurant inside the casino itself. As we came out, there was a live band playing covers of loads of old songs. We stopped to watch them for a short while, and only after we’d been there for a couple of minutes did I notice a tiny hunched bundle of clothes, swaying in time to the beat at the front of the stage. Only, on closer inspection, it turned out to be a little old lady (who looked as though she was at least in her late 80’s), perched on the front of the stage with her little legs dangling down in front of her. She was wrapped up unnecessarily snugly in the heat of the casino, refusing to do so much as ditch the headscarf. To complete the old Granny look, she had her knitting to one side of her. The only thing that made her stand out quite as much as she did, and that had led to a fairly sizable crowd to form in a semicircle around her, was the fact that she was playing along with the rest of the band. On her walking stick. That’s right, a little old lady, knitting to one side, was perched on the edge of the stage playing air guitar on her walking stick. And it wasn’t something that she’d decided to do just for a second or even a minute. She spent the next half an hour strumming along to the music, with jaw set and a steely glint of determination in her eye.

An icy tree and the American Falls

After the band took a 10 minute break, they returned with even cheesier songs, such as “Hey Mickey“, and “Like a Virgin”. The little old dear could no longer keep seated. She had to get up and dance (though still playing air guitar on the walking stick). And she wasn’t prepared to do this on her own. She started stalking the crowd of onlookers, turning like an oil tanker before setting course and approaching her pray with an uncomfortably slow sense of inevitability, and pulling her victims in to dance with her. It was while she was in the midst of this crowd interaction that I saw her slowly turn to where me and Angela were standing, and ease on the accelerator. Like in that scene in Austin Powers where the guard gets run over by a steam-roller, I saw this coming from a long way off, had plenty of time to act, and yet felt rooted to the spot. Snapping myself out of this trance, I tried to dart around the corner, only to feel Angela holding on to my arm, tugging me back. “She just wants to dance with you!” My eyes must have shown my blind terror at the thought of not only having to attempt to dance sober, but having to do so in front of a massive crowd of people with a crazy little old lady, who would just stand there playing the air guitar on her walking stick.

A frozen bush and the American Falls

With hindsight, perhaps I should have explained this at the time to Angela. It certainly wouldn’t have been hard to at least have given a slightly more eloquent response than the one my terrorised mind came up with: “F**k that!”. I yanked my arm back and ran to hide behind a slot machine. Yes, a large group of people had just seen me run away from a little old lady, but at least here, crouched behind a slot machine, I was safe. I gave it a couple of minutes before I slowly peeked around the corner. And there was Angela, with a couple of other girls, dancing with the old lady. Feeling slightly ashamed of myself, I crept my way towards her around the back of the crowd. She soon spotted me, and started edging her way away from the old lady. Luckily she didn’t seem remotely pissed-off at me for deserting her. “I just couldn’t run away from her and leave her like that.” I shook my head, and said, “Canadians,” as if that explained it all. We watched a few more victims get sucked into join her ladyship, and then made our way back to the hotel.

Niagara Falls, Canada