Meet Chuck

I use a walker. Its name is Chuck.

Ask why.

Because Chuck Norris is Walker, Texas Ranger.

Get it? Get it? It's a terrible, terrible pun, because I am a bad person.

Why did I give my walker a name, you might wonder? Because saying "my walker" is generic and kind of depressing while saying "Chuck" is fun and individual. People name their cars, right? So why not name a walker. I don't name my canes, but some of the kids I babysit have attributed magic powers to them. My cane that's covered in stars and moons and comets gives me the power to arbitrarily set bedtimes earlier should children not use their listening skills. It's amazing.

In all seriousness, naming a thing makes it familiar and unthreatening. In many cultures with high infant mortality rates families don't name their children for the first couple of months so that it doesn't hurt as much if it dies. My distant cousins named a turkey they were raising for Thanksgiving but when November came around they had become attached to it as a pet and bought a frozen turkey for dinner. Giving my walker a name makes it more familiar and comfortable to me and, hopefully, others around me.

My friend asked me to pose to show off the sweater I knitted, so I gave her the campiest pose I could along with some good ones. Naturally this is the only one to not be blurry. *sigh*

Chuck has stickers. Think of them as Pieces of Flare.

My cup holder is making a super secret cameo off to the side.

L-R: A 9 3/4 sign, the TARDIS, a Dalek, Dave Matthews Band, PARTAY, golden snitch, yarn, Steelers, and Om Mani Padme Hung.

And of course I had to add on lights. I plan on changing them out and adding on more for various occasions. I totally have multi-coloured flower lights for seeing DMB this summer.

Shiny.

Over the holidays I added on blinky red/yellow/blue/green lights to be festive and to inadvertently show off my Tartans pride.

People have overall been really cool about Chuck, especially since it's kinda funky and has stickers and is really out there which makes people more comfortable with starting conversations.

I was the first person to ever bring a walker into this bar period, let alone to the lower level area for a party. They were awesome and I got help carrying Chuck both up and down all of the stairs.

And of course kids are fascinated with all of the pretty stickers and lights and whatnot. My best friend from grad school has a three-year-old with a penchant for stealing my cane, and when I went to visit them recently she decided she wanted to take command of Chuck as well. She kept asking if we could go out on walks so she could ride on "my chuck."

Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuush...

The problem is that the only way for her to really reach any sort of handle she had to pull the brakes down into a locked position. After much frustrated cranky toddler ranting I finally just picked her up and let her sit on the thing.

So yeah. That's Chuck. Ta da!