Out of Chair Experiences

Out-of-Chair Experiences

I had just gone to a bakery with my mother. She debated long over which cake to get for her dinner event. She found the perfect cake that would be a hit with everyone.

You must know that when a man is in a wheelchair, it is a constant negative in regard to going shopping with a female. The reason for this imperative is due to the fact that you become an animated shopping cart. She will say, “Just hold this.” Notice the lack of a request. Before you get to the register, she will be pushing your chair, and you will have both arms wrapped around every awkward and unwieldy item in the store.

The bakery we had gone to was on the second level of the two-story strip-mall. Instead of an elevator, there was a nearly block-long ramp. The cake was in a box, in my lap, and I began rolling somewhat briskly down to street level.

Almost at the bottom of the ramp was a metal grating for drainage, and the grillwork in the grating just happened to run in the same direction that my front wheels were rolling. When the front wheels suddenly stopped, I was propelled into the air by my downhill momentum. Before I landed, I heard my mother shout–and I quote–“Watch out for the cake!” No bones were broken, and the cake was miraculously unharmed.

A similar incident happened going up a ramp. The church choir had rehearsed the Christmas cantata for months. The staging involved us all being angels. We opted for the wingless variety of angels and were all in flowing white robes. Naturally my wheelchair was a bit awkward: The staging area was to be Heaven, we were to be the heavenly host, and one ministering spirit just happened to be crippled.

The music begins and the choir of the angels walks through the congregation singing the opening. The ramp to the platform is too steep for me to go up without assistance, due to space limitations. To avoid a stagehand appearing in the performance to help an angel get into heaven, I got helped into place a few minutes before the program actually started.

As I get to the ramp, I need to pop my front wheels onto it, so the footrest doesn’t dig into the ramp, then I can be pushed up. Without realizing this, a friend of mine took me on a fast run up the ramp that resulted in an angel with lifeless legs and no wings being catapulted into Heaven.

The collective gasp from the audience was sufficient.

I’ve gotten out of my car, on the first day of my new job. Cajon High School is empty of life, all but me and a custodian just going into one of the classes. I’ve arrived early so that I can get to my room and be ready for students. Being in a wheelchair causes me to always plan ahead for any eventuality. The last thing I want to happen is for there to be treacherous steps between me and my destination when the tardy bell rings.

I rolled up the slight grade to my building, and nearly to the level sidewalk that ran along the doorways, I realized the grade was more than slight. Gravity took hold, and I began to roll back down the path in reverse.

Don’t ask me how, but I listed to one side, and my left back wheel dropped off the pavement into the grass. The next moment or two involved a complex series of physical laws that put me on my back in the grass.

The sprinklers had just turned off, so I was on my back in the wet grass.

The aforementioned custodian came out of the classroom, and it didn’t take too much effort to make myself noticed. He helped me into my chair, I was on my way, and no one was the wiser.

My first van, equipped for use by a handicapped driver, had a standard wheelchair lift. The lift faced away from the side of the van. After raising the person sitting in the chair to a position level with the van floor, the wheelchair user backs into the van, the lift folds up into the van, and the door closes.

Electronic circuitry been much akin to witchcraft, my trust in its continued service is small.

The passenger riding with me had exited the van and was waiting for me behind the vehicle. The door opened, the lift unfolded and I rolled my chair onto the lift platform. When I pressed the button for the lift to lower me on to ground level, I was not expecting what happened instead. The platform somewhat rapidly folded back into the van, virtually throwing me onto the van floor, flat on my back.

When my passenger came around to my side of the van, to see what was taking me so long, she was startled to see the underside of my wheelchair, with my feet coming over the top. By this time, I was waiting for her discovery, calmly singing some innocuous show-tune. As expected, she found this amusing.

I worked for several years, teaching English in Europe. On the first day of class, I was sitting at a table, talking to one of my teenaged students before class began.

The disposition of my wheelchair is important to the rest of what happened.

European passages and door frames are less uniform in size and are often smaller than their American counterparts. I had the axles of my back wheels moved forward for a smaller turning radius and tip guards attached to avoid falling backward. I liked this configuration and was getting quite used to it. In the beginning, I panicked when I began to tip, but I got used to the guards and learned to appreciate them.

On the day in question, I had forgotten to put the tip guards on my chair when I left the car, to start my teaching day. While talking to my student, I wasn’t even slightly concerned when the chair began to tip back.

Put yourself in the student’s position. He was sitting and chatting with the new teacher from America, who happened to be wheelchair bound. Suddenly, mid-sentence, the teacher executes an almost perfect back flip. A bit alarming.

This student asked the obvious question: “What should I do?” I responded, “Help me up.” The class began without lasting effect from the incident, other than my red face.

These are only a few of the countless times this maneuver was performed by my chair, with me in it, and I won’t belabor the issue more than necessary.

The last out-of-chair experience I’d like to relate (certainly not the last that's happened) involves an automobile bumper and a security gate. The elements of the story I’ve already given reference to make the event sound treacherous, and it might have been.

Early in my handicap, I lived in an apartment with my mother. I had learned to drive an adapted vehicle, but I had to park on the street due to space limitations in our security garage.

If my mother was driving up in her car, as I unlocked the walk-in gate, she would frequently tell me, “Hold on to my car, and I’ll pull you into the lot.” She always looked a bit disappointed to hear me turn her down.

I took driver’s education in high school and distinctly remember the teacher’s admonition that we should never let someone on a bicycle hang on and be towed by our car. I wasn’t sure what damage could be done by this, but I figured that the same rule probably applied to wheelchairs.

Finally one evening, I decided to have a little fun and ride along. I went around behind her car and grabbed tightly onto the rear bumper. She went slowly, but stopping her or letting go quickly enough were both out of the question when my front wheels hit the security gate track and stopped.

Lying on the gate track, with my empty chair behind me, wouldn’t have been so bad, if my mother wouldn’t have jumped out of her car and yelled, “What should I do?” Before I could respond, the gate began to close.

Not to be daunted by a stressful situation, Mom reached into her car and grabbed the remote control opener for the gate and started clicking. To add insult to injury (or handicap, as the case may be), the whole incident struck her as being humorous. We now had a soundtrack of hysterical laughter.

Neighbors who heard my mother’s mirth from their apartments over the garage, were the ones who helped me back into my chair. My mother thanked them and disappeared into our apartment as quickly as could be considered acceptable. I however endured a chorus of genuinely concerned are-you-okays. I don’t remember whether or not I was telling the truth, when I told them I was.