I owe it all to Tits

My partner and I get dispatched to a local retirement home for another of those nondescript "fall" calls. We mosey on over there and arrive to find a LOL (little old lady) seated on the bus, awake, alert and actually quite pleasant. She is a black woman in her early eighties,wearing a t-length floral dress, leather shoes and stockings. Nothing on this woman is out of place.

"What's troubling you today ma'am?" I ask, truly wondering what IS, in fact troubling her. (she looks fine to me)

"Well," she intones in that wavering voice only litlle old ladies have, "I went to church today and felt a little unsteady and now that I'm back, every time I try to get up, it feels like something is pushing me back down."

So as my partner stands on the steps of the bus, this lady and I discuss her present weakness and whether or not she has any other problems, did she eat today, take all of her pills, invoke the spirit? What is causing her not to be able to get back up? We run through every course, check her blood sugar, and put her on the monitor. I'm stumped.

She continues to tell me through this entire assessment that she keeps trying to get up and something keeps pushing her back down. My partner at this point, cracks a mischievious smile and nudges me in the arm. I'm thinking to myself: "What's she laughing at?" At which point, my partner, Sara, or Tits as we lovingly call her, takes over my assessment.

"Ma'am, do you wear your seatbelt every day?"
"Why, yes, dear, every time we go for a ride."
"Well, is it possible today, that you forgot to take it off before you tried to get up?"

And the old lady looks down and, lo and behold, there lie, tucked neatly under her belly, an intact seatbelt.

The old lady postured with an "Oh my!" and then took it off, stood up and walked up to her 2nd story apartment.

I think our partners are meant to keep us safe but also to point out when a seatbelt is stuck in a persons layers, so to speak.