The early April afternoon had felt more like a typical dreary November day, with overcast skies full of large gray clouds and cool, damp air. I left the university campus in order to run some errand in the downtown core, the exact nature of which I no longer recall. It was as I took a short cut through the basement of a major department store that I first noticed a pair of wooden underarm crutches leaning up against the glass portion of the deli counter.

The health food section located a stone's throw away from the deli counter became my excuse for lurking in order to determine who the owner of the crutches was. For a few moments, I was unable to ascertain whom they could belong to. Despite the fact that they were resting at an angle off of vertical, I estimated that they must have belonged to someone who was a few inches taller than five feet. I concluded that the user of such a pair of crutches would either be a teenager or if indeed an adult, a female!

My patience running a bit thin, I decided to become more proactive in my search for the owner of the crutches. A little voice in the back of my mind was reminding me that it would be a shame to waste my valuable time for the typical disappointments in a caster's life, i.e.: a castless crutcher, ace bandages, etc. So the sooner I confirmed this was a non-sighting, the better. My proactiveness had me leave the health food section in favor of the women's undergarment section located across a busy aisle from where I had presently watched in order to get a better angle for seeing the entire deli counter. It was as I stood in a sea of pantyhose display shelves that I finally set eyes on the person who was to be the owner of the abandoned crutches.

She had dark moderately curly hair that hung down to below her shoulders. Standing about five foot four inches tall, the woman who must have been in her late twenties was dressed in a navy blue windbreaker type jacket and blue jeans. It turned out that she looked an awful lot like the girlfriend of an older fellow who was in school with me. I knew it wasn't his girl, but she could have easily been her sister.

The fact that she had a backpack strapped to her upper back made me assume that this was what she was using as a purse and as a means to carry things, being on crutches. Oh, by the way, the further evidence that she was the one separated from the crutches was that her right lower leg was encased within a plaster cast. It was a heeled version that had thus allowed her to circle around the deli counter without the crutches. Her toes were hidden from view thanks to a thick navy blue toe cap that looked as if it had been cut away from a thermal ski sock. Fortunately, all that remained of the sock made it amount to little more than a toe covering that only slightly overlapped onto the cast itself.

I was quickly bereft of any thoughts of how I must have looked standing amongst a million or more pairs of women's stockings. At least I've always had my priorities straight when it comes to casts.

I watched as the castee went about her business at the deli counter on one and a half feet. She was obviously not 100% certain about weightbearing on her cast's high "block-type" heel. She seemed to keeping the majority of her weight on her good foot that was clad in a woman's low heeled loafer type shoe. Only when it was necessary did she apply any weight to her casted foot. Like as she prepared to accept the wrapped item that she had had prepared for herself and she slipped the backpack from her back. She proceeded to take the package and to place it into the backpack. In exchange, she took a wallet out of the pack and paid for her order. All this was accomplished without the crutches and her just slightly avoiding full blown hopping on her good foot.

The closest she came to hopping was as she made her way around the corner of the deli counter back to where her crutches awaited her. Once next to her crutches, she efficiently replaced the backpack on her back and soon had the sticks in their place under her arms and was slowly crutching away. Crutching in the direction that was leading 'deeper" into the store made my heart race. I realized that I was going to be able to enjoy the sight of her for a while, since she wasn't going to head for the door and be on a subway out of here anytime soon!

Steadily she was crutching along. Every now and then she would pause and take a look at items on display. It was only at one point when she made a bee-line for the "up" escalator that I really saw that she was crutching strangely. She seemed as if she was trying to get into the habit of applying weight to the cast. Usually when a person is doing this, they'll advance the two crutches simultaneously along with the casted foot, and apply a moderate amount of supported weight on the cast's heel as the good foot is swung forward. Instead, this castee was advancing one crutch with the casted foot and then the other crutch with the good foot. Her gait was bumpy and awkward looking to say the least.

I managed to time my presence on the escalator with hers quite well. As I may have mentioned in a previous installment, I have always enjoyed stairways and escalators for cast sightings. This is especially true for when going in the "up" direction when a cast on someone's leg can be scrutinized from fairly close range and oftentimes without the cast wearer even knowing his/her cast is being so scrutinized. I got my nose to within a couple of feet of this lady's casted foot. I was able to see that the cast was fairly recent as it was a shiny white without any markings or writing. From this close it also appeared that she had a double toe cap on, as it seemed like there was another sock under the outside one. I wondered what she would have done in the dead of winter. Once up at the top of what turned out to be the shortest escalator ride of my life, I had to make my way past her as she had gotten off the escalator and veered off to the side and stopped. It was no big deal as I simply walked around some cosmetics counter and slowed down waiting for her next move.

It turned out that she went up to that area in order to browse through the various cosmetics display counters using her strange crutching technique. She would regularly stop every now and then in order to sample fragrances, talk to cosmetics salespeople and so on. At one point I was so trying to blend in to the scenery that I lost sight of her. Eventually I set eyes on her again, this time she was seated in a director's type chair that had extra long legs. In fact, the seat was so high that her legs, including the casted one, simply dangled about a foot or so up off the ground. In retrospect, this would have made a tremendous photo. The fact that she was seated caused the leg of her Jean's to rise up a few inches from her ankle region. I got to see even more cast. The cosmetics salesperson was busy applying some type of eye shadow or other such make-up around the castee's eyes. In this day and age of body image and general hedonism, there's little more exciting in life than a castee making herself even prettier for the time that she's in the cast!

She eventually came down off of her chair and made a few more purchases throughout the cosmetics area of the store. Next she headed out of the store onto the street. It was there that I got to really enjoy (for lack of a better word) her screwed up gait. She took a quiet side street and made her way up a hill.

At the top of the hill, she entered into a building by way of the revolving door. To do this, she slipped her crutches out from under her arms and, carrying them in one of her hands, returned to the one and a half foot scurrying version of herself. I was relieved to see that she wouldn't be disappearing into the large building as all she was doing there was going to the bank located in the main lobby.

I watched as she slowly advanced along the queue line for teller service. As she stood and waited, she seemed to be moving her casted foot a lot. She'd raise it off the ground into the air for a few moments, then she'd reapply the heel to the floor and move her leg from side to side. Then she'd kind of move her leg from front to back, without actually lifting the heel off the ground. I wasn't really sure whether she was merely exercising the muscles of her leg that were within the cast or if she was trying to relieve discomfort. Perhaps things were getting tight in there if there was swelling due to her having been so vertical for so long!

I did begin to get a bit concerned as I guess I had been following her for almost an hour now. Surely one could understand a few chance encounters with the same person within a few moments, but in this case, I felt like she'd eventually realize that I was somewhat too omnipresent for our encounters to be mere serendipity.

Anyway, I got a chance to stare at her casted self as she got busy standing before the teller's wicket. I timed her exit from the place and so I made sure I got far away from the door. Once outside, she crutched in the direction opposite to where I had sought safe refuge.

I started to watch as she was going away from me. Ultimately, I could not resist, as I had to extend this excellent sighting. I followed her some more.

At a busy intersection, she crossed the street. I noticed that several of the occupants of the stopped cars were watching her gingerly make her way across the intersection. I remained on the original side of the street since I could get a good view of her anyway.

Interestingly, she broke out of her messed up gait in order to raise her casted foot up off the ground and to double crutch her way across a puddle that lay in her path on the sidewalk. Apparently she was able to crutch normally. She resumed her patented crutching style once she got clear of the water.

I felt safe on my side of the street so I passed her location in order to be able to admire her from the front. Eventually she turned up a residential street and entered into the lobby of the first apartment building she came to.

I strolled past the building in an attempt to get a few last looks at her through the predominantly glass door. It was then that I noticed that she now faced the door and was looking straight out at me.

Perhaps I had been BUSTED! Oh well, this was the last I ever set eyes upon this casted woman. This, despite my having passed the apartment building every chance I got over the course of the next month or so. It was a memorable 90 minutes of my life.

I hope I didn't make her paranoid about her being casted to the point that she would have stopped going out until the end of her ordeal. Believe me, the last thing I'd ever want to do is to scare cast wearers into hiding - especially the pretty female ones!