also this plan of attack was not halted.
My friend's parents were very cautious people who did things the way they did things and did not mix things up. They were organized and anything out-of-the-norm made them both nervous.
That said, as they got older, they found they were having a harder time with various chores related to their homes. They had two -- one was in a city blocks away from their three children and six grand-children, but the other was their cottage, which was four hours away. The kids and grandkids visited, but they were often up there alone.
So one year they go up and it's the first weekend, and they are opening the cottage and one of the tasks they are both dreading was doing the portage to get the canoe down to the dock. So, very uncharacteristically, my friend's father suggests that, rather than walk it down the switchback path to the water, they set up a rope and lower it down the very steep hill from the top. So they spent some time putting this plan together, and then they tied the canoe to the rope to lower it down...
And the second it tipped onto the hill they both lost their grip on the rope and the canoe flew down the hill, shot off the dock and landed in the lake.
They both found this incredibly funny and I don't blame them, but this is 100% the kind of thing I find myself trying to stop my parents from attempting.
