BUFFALO, NY—No longer the spry daredevil she was when she was younger, beloved grandmother Lydia McNeese, 87, has reached that age where even just one trip over Niagara Falls could be fatal. “She’s getting to that point that all women reach, if they’re lucky, where she simply can’t handle a 170-foot plunge down a waterfall,” said McNeese’s daughter Samantha McNeese-Tyler, noting that her mother scolded her for condescension when she suggested that the octogenarian consider a protective barrel. “You know how it is, though—no matter how much you tell your mother to hold onto the railings, she still insists on kayaking across. We keep trying to explain that one little 12-story drop onto the sharp rocks below and she might be gone forever, but she’s stubborn. Which is frustrating. I mean, she knows that’s how grandpa went.” At press time, the elder McNeese was insisting she did not need to see a doctor despite potentially spraining her ankle on her daily walk after becoming entangled in her tightrope.

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