Floor Exercise

I went to look at a house.  My friend—a realtor—loaned me the lock box key because I assured her that even the chair wouldn’t cause problems for me to simply look around.  It was a repo home that she was handling, and I was looking to buy a house. 

            I had just started driving with my hands and felt empowered.

            It was a contact sport to get my chair out of the car. This was my first time doing it all by myself, and I had my friend help me take the wheels off and set it in the passenger’s seat before leaving her office.  I hadn’t considered driving a van yet because it seems very orthopedic to me, and I was still less than an ace driver.

            I parked at the house and tried to lift the chair body over me and out of the car door.  I had to put it back down and recline my seat all the way to have sufficient space to get it past me.  I had to stop in-progress, with the chair somewhat in my lap, and slide my seat all the way back.  After setting the chair outside, I put the wheels out there and returned my seat to the upright position.  I’m pretty sure I “narrated” it that way.

            I put one wheel on the chair, but when I lifted the other side to put on the other wheel, it kept swiveling, which made it difficult to line up the wheel and put it in place.

            After finally getting the chair together, I realized that the car seat was quite a bit lower than the chair seat.  It took several tries to figure out a position, get the wheels locked (a waste of time because wheel-locks don’t), and lift myself into the wheelchair.  Once in the chair, I went into the house.  I felt empowered.

            I looked around, but my undoing was when I checked out the garage.  The lights weren’t on, but minimum light from the kitchen door letting in daylight from the windows was enough to see an empty garage.

As I rolled in, my front wheels dropped down the one step that was hidden by shadow.  After doing a belly-flop on the garage floor, I discussed the situation with myself.

“That didn’t feel good at all, but I don’t think anything is broken.  Actually, I can’t feel my legs, so I probably wouldn’t know.  What I do know is I’m laying on a garage floor of a former crack house, in semi-darkness.  Only God knows what vermin are lurking about, and I’m feeling just more than a bit vulnerable.”

Some would tell me something is very wrong that I often make a running commentary when no one is there, but I just figure it’s the product of having spent a lot of alone time.

I tried to sit up without the benefit of working legs, and finally found out that I could fold my legs in front of me and leaning forward to do so.  My chair had rolled across the garage after depositing me, so I did some complicated floor gymnastics to get over to the errant chair.  I decided that the step (the evil step that hid in the shadow) offered me the best chance of putting me high enough to transfer into the chair, and I repeated my choreography—now with chair in tow—back to the step.  The only way I could move the chair while using my hands to move myself was to hook my keys on the footrest of the chair and grip the end of the lanyard in my teeth. 

After I finished my exodus to the step, I reached to grab a stationary piece of machinery for the purpose of pulling myself up onto the step.  A firm grip on said machinery gave me the instant impression that the hot water heater it turned out to be was on.

Expletives.

Several tries to re-chair myself resulted in absolute failure.  I proceeded to do what I should have done to begin with:  I pulled out my cell phone.  I did not feel empowered.

“Hi, Penny.

Oh, the house is okay.  It’s not in the best shape, but I see possibilities.

Yeah. I did run into a little problem though.

No.  No.  The front door can be replaced, but at the moment it seems I find myself on the garage floor with third-degree burns on my right arm.

No.  No panic.  The problem was of my own making, but I might need a bit of help here.”

I recited the Preamble to the Constitution.  I sang through Bohemian Rhapsody.  I ran through the Vaudeville memory quiz of one hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, etc.  I sang all twelve days of Christmas, and starting with 99, got to negative 157 bottles of beer on the wall before Penny and her policeman brother-in-law arrived.  The sun had gone down and the house’s open plywood door, plus the fact that not every local junkie knew this supply had been closed had me slightly worried. (Did I mention the total darkness?)

I was annoyed—with myself—when they got there and helped me, but I was warm and winning and finally drove away thankful that it was too dark to see my red face or my bruised pride.

When I got there, I was actually glad no one was at home because I needed private down time.  It was still a clown act to reassemble my chair, but I closed the front door of my house with a sigh of relief.  I rolled into my bedroom, and in one motion, threw stuff from my lap to the bed and switched on the light.  It immediately burned out.

I Did It

I promised myself that I’d write the next time I heard that moronic TV commercial.

             I did.

              The California Department of Public Health has a program called Champions for Change.  It promotes feeding you children healthy food here in America, Land of the Obese.

The commercial says, “Asking your local store to carry more fruits and vegetables is hard, but your children having Type 2 Diabetes would be harder” and so forth.

What local stores in California is this referring to?  Convenience stores?  Some have limited produce, but they are there for a whole different purpose.  Grocery stores?  They have a whole produce section.  The whole idea of the way this sounds insults my intelligence.  Wouldn’t any one of sound mind who wants to get produce just go to the right store?

Unless you’re thinking about some of our ingrown immigrant communities that pile more kids than should be legal for those unable to afford them into their Escalades (How do they afford that on their anchor babies’ welfare money?) and go to the Mexi-markets that smell of goat meat.  Wait, they already have produce too.  What idiot scripts these commercials? 

I looked at the web site for this program—what a piece of liberal propaganda.  Only a mental midget could take it seriously.

If you want healthy kids, feed them healthy food.  It’s not hard to figure out.  You’d have to have been born on another planet, if you didn’t know that soda pop and candy bars aren’t healthy.  I almost forgot that the people this is aimed at are the ones who permissibly give their kids anything they want.

What you’ve just read is basically what I wrote to the CDPH. I have now been labeled both a racist and a hate-monger.  I am neither, though that’s hard to see in my rhetoric.

At the end of my rant, I suggested that they not waste any more money on commercials aimed at the vegetative population, but that they read a classic novel instead.

Whew.

What Has Happened?

Okay, I don’t want to actually hurt anyone. I don’t want to put out a contract on an ex-lover.  I don’t want to hire a thug to break the knees of a rival.  I don’t want to seek assistance from a withered hag to curse my former friend.  I don’t even want to assassinate the president. I just want to stop people from speaking in such a way that it appears they’ve been raised by larger primates.

              I teach high school English, and I realize that most people don’t speak perfectly.  I even make grammatical errors in my daily conversation.  I’m not unaware of the fact that my job puts me in a position to recognize other people’s speech deficiencies, but I try to be realistic and look for the meaning behind what people say.  No one is any more annoyed with people who verbally correct other people’s speech in public conversation than I.  I think it’s rude, and somewhat demeaning, and people can be embarrassed unnecessarily. 

              If you correct people like this, they start to avoid you, and you become a social pariah.

              That said, I want to scream when I hear phrases like, “I seen,” “My fiend house,” “Had went,” and “We conversate.”  These aren’t just verbal mistakes, but they are roughly the equivalent of baby talk.  This kind of verbal illiteracy crosses racial lines and weaves through all layers of socio-economic status.  I worry that common speech is descending into a morass of lazy thinking and lack of concern that the rest of intelligent humanity is laughing at us.

              Other languages have rules and people who speak that tongue look at you befuddled if you use incorrect tenses or even idiotic pronunciation, but English—being the most wide-spread language of  communication—often accommodates errors.  But accommodation can only go so far before we become the linguistic joke of the planet. If this was a problem only heard in sub-cultures or ethnic communities, it wouldn’t bother me any more than any accent, slang, creole or pidgin, but it isn’t. 

              This may be the harbinger to the end of civilization as we know it.

             

My Romantic Life

So Tammy was cute and fairly quiet.  She sat in the back row of church.  One Sunday, I struck up a conversation with her, and though she didn’t say much to make me think she might like to be around me, I asked her out to a picnic to see the Forth of July fireworks show on Mt. Rubidoux. 

Half the city goes to the base of Mt. Rubidoux and watches the fireworks from the Redwood Cemetery.  It’s a tradition. 

I went and picked up Tammy, drove to the cemetery and pulled down onto a little access road.  I got out of my van the raised the wheelchair lift into the up position.  Then I threw a tablecloth over the lift, set it like a table with the picnic basket and got a folding chair out of the back for her to use.  It was almost a bit romantic—if you can forget this is in the middle of a graveyard. 

After we ate, the sun was going down, and we watched the fireworks show.  People noticed the picnic, and gave us strange looks, but they were there—in the same cemetery—to see the show, so who were they to call anyone strange?

That pretty much covers our first date, and though Tammy was wearing feathers in her hair, I thought she was maybe endearingly quirky.  It was worth a second date to find out more, so I asked her to dinner and a movie.

When I went to pick her up, I don’t remember exactly what she wore, but there were, in fact, other feathers.  I wonder now if this should have been a warning sign, but subtlety often escapes me.

We headed toward the part of town where the theatre was, and I asked if she had any preferences for where to eat.  Emphatically, she told me that she wasn’t hungry and couldn’t eat a bite.  This caught me off guard because I had asked her to dinner and a movie.  I drove to the center where the theatre was and figured we’d waist the time I had planned for eating at a local coffee house.

When we got to the front of the line at the coffee house, I made my order and asked Tammy what she would like to drink. 

At this coffee house, their menu had every type of coffee and tea drink imaginable.  There were even several items not containing the title fare, but Tammy asked for Juice.  Of all the items that were on that menu, juice was not one of them.  I’m now becoming a little weirded out.

I reasoned with her a bit, but Tammy held true to her convictions and insisted on juice.  We left the coffee house without buying anything.  We then went to the fast food restaurant two doors down, and I bought her a peel-top cup of orange juice that they had on their breakfast menu.  We sat outside in silence while she drank it. 

When we finally went into the theatre lobby, the smell of freshly made popcorn wrapped around us like a blanket, and Tammy said, “Oooh, can we get some popcorn?”

I was thinking, Aren’t you the girl who couldn’t eat a bite?, but I said, “If you want some.”

First, we went into the theatre, where I got her situated in a seat somewhat close to the front (at her request), then I went to get her some popcorn.  I doubt that it comes as much of a surprise, that when I went back into the theatre, Tammy was in the back row.  I didn’t ask.

I did tell her that I had the popcorn, and she informed me that she hated even the smell of popcorn and would need to sit a seat farther away if I would be eating popcorn.  At this point, I’m starting to wonder if I’m possibly being punked or something.  Deciding that I’ve just won the What’s-going-on-here Lotto, I ate the popcorn as the movie began.

Fifteen minutes into the movie, Tammy leans over to me and whispers, “Is it okay if I go sit in the car?”

I wasn’t ready for that one and queried, “You want to leave?” Incredulously.  Tammy brightened and said, “If you do.”

On the ride back to drop her off at her apartment, there was silence.  This silence was finally broken by Tammy looking over at me and asking, “Can I touch you?”

This night of adventure in Oz no longer had the potential to shock me, and I responded with as much nonchalance as I could muster, “Sure. Live it up.”

Tammy reached over timidly and gently squeezed my right elbow twice, then folded her hand back in her lap.  The rest of the trip to her apartment was uneventful and so was my dropping her off.  No conversation, no goodnight kiss, no more that a thankful “Goodnight.”

I’ve since learned that Tammy actually suffers from a mild form of schizophrenia, and what I saw as quirky was the La La Land she lives in. My mistake.

That date has taken its place in my memory as a high water mark of strangeness in my romantic life.  It’s not a wonder I’ve never married.

I've been teaching high school English forever.
The Students were given the assignment to write an essay about childhood obesity.  They needed to decide if it was the fault of the parents, the food companies or the children themselves and defend their position.
This is probably my favorite paper that I've ever collected.
Go ahead and try to read.  It took me a long time to figure it out.

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

Last summer, my family sent me to Hawaii. I worried that their expectation was for me to swim back to California, but it turned out to be a round-trip flight.  I was going to see some old friends and a few of the sights.  Not only that, but the mild climate and stress-free lifestyle of the Islands would be good for my MS.

When I left, I gate-checked my wheelchair and was assured that it would meet me at the end of the flight (You see this coming, don’t you?).  Arriving in Honolulu, the isle chair took me to an airport wheelchair waiting for me in the loading area. 

I tried to stay somewhat evolved, but insisted that they find my chair.  They did finally bring me another passenger’s wheelchair (who was looking for it in Baggage Claim), but my chair was nowhere to be found. To make a long story short, my chair was on the tarmac in Los Angeles. 

One of the comments that was tossed at me was, “Well, sometimes baggage does get lost.”  Think about that.

I’m not militant, and I don’t like to make a bad name for my misabled brothers and sisters, but suddenly I had become unclaimed baggage.  I was traveling alone and had suddenly had my “legs” removed.  My mouth was still intact, and several people heard it.  The biggest problem was that no matter how much or to whom I complained, I was still sitting in an airport and not enjoying Hawaii.

The best that they could do was to bring my chair to the hotel when it arrived in eight hours and let me use one of the airport chairs in the interim.  I chose the lesser of evils (the chair that was the closest to fitting a human body), loaded into my friend’s car and went forth.

By that evening, my chair had arrived, and normal order in my abnormal world was restored, but I write this to say something else.  Though the world doesn’t always accommodate me, I have learned to live in it regardless.

I don’t blame anyone for my difficulties, and I’m not mad at anyone (except the jerk who forgot to load my chair).  If I am to thrive in my world and my situation, I have to make a conscious decision to do so and to enjoy the journey.  I have more being-thrown-out-of-my-chair stories than I can count, and I often encounter the insensitive and the stupid, but I usually find humor in trips down Memory Lane to revisit them.

This is my mission in life:  I will see the incongruities and absurdities around (and sometimes in) me in a way that makes me a better person with a better (and more humorous) story to tell.     

What Else Is in a Name?

The only thing that bothers me about what I’m called is the total lack of anything remotely accurate in the terminology.  I’m not an activist, and I don’t go in for militant activities, but I want to saay that some thought needs to be put into the words that describe the misabled.

            Look, I get the annoyance with the term handicapped, but some carry it too far.  I’m told it derives from times-gone-by in Great Britain.  The person with physical limitations would sit in a public place, with his cap in his hand, asking financial assistance of passers-by.  I’m told we don’t like that now because it fosters a certain level of pity.  This is not my problem with the term. 

            The problem I see is the natural protraction of the word handicapped into handicapped parking, handicapped rest rooms, and various other terms.  Though easily understood, something in my literal mind pictures a handicapped parking space as maybe having only one line or dangerous ground cover that potentially damages tires, thus rendering it handicapped.  The same goes for a handicapped rest room with even more embarrassment potential.

            Once again, I’m told (who starts these things that people get “told”?) that invalid is from the French and simply means that which is implied by the term: A lack of validity.  I may have my moments that have caused the rest of the human race to not want me used as an example, but occasionally I consider myself quite valid.  There’s this little trick I do with an earlobe and a few foot-massaging techniques that have elicited very valid responses. 

            Some have sought to soften the affect of unsavory terms by abstraction.  We’ve seen this done by quasi-socialist liberals teaching undergraduate level classes with titles like Her-story.  These same would-be wordsmiths invented handi-capable.  This might defer unnecessary guilt, but it’s downright silly.  Handi-capable sounds like something spouted by rosy-cheeked cherubs on the Good Ship Lollipop.

            The term that puts an edge on my teeth to rival an overdose of citric acid is physically challenged.  This is perfect when associated with athletes who have physical disabilities because their handicap imposes an extra challenge.  To the average person, physical challenge describes a track meet. To the misabled person, pushing a wheelchair or communicating in sign language is bridging a gap, and the gap itself is simply a pain in the arse.

            I don’t need to say much about the word disabled because my problem with it should be clear.  Don’t try to clean it up by saying differently-abled; you already know my position on handi-capable.  My ability has not been necessarily canceled.  Where my limitations say no, I must discover a way to say yes.  It’s all a matter of rerouting focus.

            There are problems with any of the nom de jour used to describe the misabled.  I’m obviously not in camp with any of them.  Those who consider themselves my friends most often call me Cripple, but that leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the uninitiated ear (How was that for strangely overlapping metaphors?).  For some time we shortened it to the familiar Crip, but one of my inner-city students told me that could get me killed in some places.

            I guess, when all is said and done, I’m left with my name.

           

           

Are You Annoying?

    This is a common question that many may ask about
themselves.  If you are not among the many who ask this vital
question, you are sorely in danger of the answer being, "Yes."
    Oftimes, it is easy to assess one’s own level of
annoyance, by answering simple questions such as, "Do I make
noises or splash while eating?" "Do I dance in public places not
intended for dancing?" and "Is my nick-name ‘Pest’?"
    For others, these kinds of simple questions are not
enough.  If you are a friend indeed, take the following short quiz
to assess your personal A.Q. (Annoyance Quotient).

        Quiz

1.  When confronted with a major decision, I usually . . .
    a.  make a logical choice.
    b.  cry.
    c.  quote Nietzsche.
    d.  sing show tunes.

2.  For breakfast, I like to eat . . .
    a.  eggs and toast.
    b.  cereal.
    c.  out.
    d.  whatever’s on the next guy’s plate.

3.  When a party gets dull, I . . .
    a.  go home.
    b.  go to another party.
    c.  spill the bean dip.
    d.  sing show tunes.

4.  My friends are always happy, if they hear that I will
drop . . .
    a.  in.
    b.  out.
    c.  a foal.
    d.  dead.

5.  My hobby is . . .
    a. collecting stamps.
    b.  collecting pancakes.
    c.  collecting enemies.
    d.  singing show tunes.

6.  I once got a girl . . .
    a.  flowers and a box of chocolates.
    b.  home late.
    c.  pregnant.
    d.  pissed-off.

7.  In a crises, what is the best way to alert the police?
    a.  Call 9-1-1.
    b.  Yell for help.
    c.  Send smoke signals.
    d.  Sing show tunes.

8.  I always have trouble remembering . . .
    a.  phone numbers.
    b.  people’s names.
    c.  to say, "Thank you."
    d.  which hand to extend for a handshake.

9.  When I started to attend public school, my parents hoped I
would not learn . . .
    a.  bad words.
    b.  bad habits.
    c.  the way home.
    d.  to sing show tunes.

10.  I moved to another town and changed my name . . .
    a.  for professional reasons.
    b.  as par of a witness protection program.
    c.  again.
    d.  because my family forced me.

    If you answered three or more of these questions with the
answer labeled c. or d., you may consider yourself certifiably
annoying.  If your answer to any of the odd-numbered questions
involved the singing of show tunes, either change your ways or
drop out of polite society and live as an outcast.
    Hopefully, this little self-improvement aid has been of
some assistance.  Good luck, and have pleasant friendships.

Strategy

This is a patterned writing I did a while back.  Tell me if you catch the pattern.

Another rejection and Bob turned around and hopped down off of the bar stool. Bob could see Carl sitting across the room, alone at a booth and waiting to hear Bob’s story. Calmly, Bob sat across the table and picked up the beer that Carl had ordered for him.

“Don’t even say it,” he said to Carl, before Carl could comment on another one who got away.

Every weekend that two of them had come to the same restaurant, sat at the same bar, used the same pick-up lines and got the same rejections. For two years, they had waited for Miss Right to see them for the great guys they were, but apparently no women in their world could appreciate them for who they really were.

“Go figure,” said Carl. “How do we break through to some of these mannequins?”

“I'm a great catch, Carl. Just the fact that I have a job, a car and a house should say something about my character,” answered Bob.

Kings have queens, but Bob and Carl had none, and not because they hadn’t been

trying. Love and romance just didn’t seem to be in their stars.

“Maybe we should change our approaches,” Bob thought out loud.

“Never!” answered Carl with conviction. “One man, one plan,” he said like he’d probably said a million times before. Persistence was definitely Carl’s long suit.

Quietly, Bob thought about what all of his rejections had in common, and there was only one thing he could think of: Lies.

“Reality check,” one girl had said to Bob as she stood up and left the bar, following Bob’s story about how he had killed a shark that was trying to snack on him at the beach. She was right because the whole story was straight out of Bob’s imagination.

“The truth is the answer,” Bob said to Carl. “Unless there's no choice, I plan to be honest, and the women will have to respect me for the strait-forward kind of man I am deep inside.”

“Very believable,” Carl chimed in.

“Well, it better be,” Bob continued, “because I’m not just some shallow red-neck with a loaded gun rack in my pick-up and no brain of my own.”

“Xerox that speech for me,” said Carl. “You know, it might come in handy as a pick-up line someday.”

“Zip the lip, Carl,” Bob said with a deflated look on his face, slumped back in his seat and ordered another beer.

How Tired I Art

(sung to the tune of "How Great Thou Art")

Oh, when I teach a class of English Grammar,

I wonder how more stupid kids can get.
They look at me as though I speak Swahili,
Or else they think I’m nuts, more than a bit.

(chorus)
It’s then I know I want to go to bed.
How tired I art.
How tired I art.
It’s then I feel much like the living dead.
How tired I art.
How tired I art.

When the alarm rings, in the morning early,
I wonder why I stayed up quite so late.
And then I go and teach those kids so squirrly.
I pray, a life of this won’t be my fate.

(chorus)

[dramatic key change]

One day, I know I’ll lose my mind completely.
Someday, I’m sure, my sanity will snap.
And then I’ll die, but please don’t feel too badly.
To me it’s just like an extended nap.

(chorus 2x)

Tyler Manners

The Rules of the Game

After three years of living in Europe and watching British news, sports and weather broadcasts, I find myself in a comfortable position to draw together my objective observations and inform the rest of the free world that which I have learned about the game of cricket. This is a game that has gone largely misunderstood and viewed with confusion. I intend to help you to understand this game and blow away that fog of confusion that surrounds it.

Cricket is primarily played by athletes not qualifying for more strenuous team sports or other sports that require a basic level of precision or endurance. The main area of ability must lie in their talent to apply zinc oxide decoratively and to match their whites. The players who are successful at this game must be gifted with coordination enough to skip without falling and the ability to throw a ball and have
it hit the ground at least four out of five throws.

In the center of the cricket field of play is a receptacle, in which (I am led to believe) are placed the ashes of some historically significant tree stump. Somewhere in relation to this receptacle--it might be on top--is the wicket. No one knows what the wicket is, since no one has
ever seen it, but the object of the game is for the bowler to throw a ball, in an attempt to dislodge the wicket from its appointed position.

Another player holds a long paddle and tries to swat the ball, thrown by the first player, away from its target. If the man with the paddle is successful in his swatting, apparently that round is finished, and a new bowler tries his hand at knocking off the allusive wicket.

If the bowler is able to dislodge the wicket, he then takes off into the playing field and runs aimlessly until the wicket can be collected and someone on the opposing team can stop him. If he isn't stopped before the ball is found, the man with the paddle is expected to give him a
brain concussion with same paddle. Now, if the wicket becomes lost in the fracas, it can be replaced easily. Since no one knows what it looks
like, many substitutions can be and are made. It is quite common to see rolled athletic socks, borrowed sets of car keys or broken pieces of pottery used in place of a lost wicket.

After several hours of play and scoring procedures that change with the wind, all play stops while the players bring their chaise lounges
onto the field and the Queen joins them for tea.

I won't try to explain the second half of the game, because no one has ever had the tenacity to watch an entire game. Suffice it to say that a
single game sometimes lasts several days. During this time hundreds of points are amassed by players completing something referred to as "runs."

Hopefully, I have cleared up some of the misconceptions about this sport. Even more than this, I hope you can sleep well knowing that people are demanding and receiving large salaries to play this game.

The Elegant Symphony

I went to a symphony concert tonight, and I have to
admit I was frightened. Not frightened as in Linda Blair's
head spinning around and around before that became something
that happens every day in your living room. More like
frightened as in, "Has civilization really descended to
THIS?"

If the symphony is anything, the symphony is elegant.
You check reality with your coat, and don't even consider
bringing your cellular or your beeper. If either went off
during the performance, you would be immediately sacrificed
to the muses, and the concert would continue in spite of the
interruption. But I digress.
Tonight, the program was filled with movements from
three Mozart symphonies and a short series of classical
guitar. During the adagio movement of the third Mozart
selection, the melee began.
The violins apparently came to a page turn in their
music, so the second violinist reached across the music stand
he shared with the first violinist to turn the page. As he
moved the loose page from the right to the left, the paper
slipped from his fingers. This did not alter the flow of the
music played by the first violinist because the page that fell
had already been finished, and the page now exposed was the
next in order.

This would have been no problem had it stopped there,
but it didn't.

The first violinist was sitting high in his seat with
his feet perched lightly below and somewhat underneath it.
The page of music that fell from the music stand landed under
the first violinist's right toes as he lifted them in time to
the music. As he put the toes of his right foot back down, the
paper between his shoe and the floor of the stage caused his
foot to slip backward.
The sudden movement of his foot effected his balance,
and he lurched forward quickly and dropped to a kneeling
position.
This change in position happened suddenly, and with a
great deal of force, but this concertmaster was a seasoned
performer, and he continued to play throughout. But this
wasn't the end. The page of music that started the trouble
was not finished.

When the first violinist dropped off of his chair
onto his knees, the music that was under his toes was
propelled out from behind him and into the face of an
unsuspecting violinist in the second row. The leap of the
first violinist and the music in his face took the man in the
second row quite by surprise, and he flinched to the left.
Of course, as one might suspect, this made him lose his
balance, causing both he and his chair to fall to the side.
The side he fell to happened to be where the woodwinds
were sitting. Amazingly, they continued to play and were
quite unaffected. It's not finished though.

The violinist from the second row who had fallen
moved into a sitting position, there on the floor beside the
woodwinds, in an attempt to follow the example of the first
violinist and continue playing. This was a noble gesture, but
as he moved, his foot bumped a glass of water sitting beside a
music stand in the woodwind section. The resulting water on
the stage floor, I am happy to say, left the woodwinds
completely unscathed, which is better than can be said for
the incredibly animated percussionist.

Normally, it is very interesting to watch the spry
movements of the percussionist from one timpani to the other.
This, however, was his undoing tonight. Of course, he slipped
on the water and headed for the floor. In a futile attempt to
grab for something stable, he put his hands onto the timpani,
which proved to be of little help.

The timpani went over onto one side, then rolled away
from the fallen percussionist and through the brass section.
The run-away drum prompted the brass players to come to their
feet and scatter. The quick movements of the entire brass
section startled one of the contrabass players. This
contrabass player looked toward the confusion and away from
the next musician in his own section. In the diversion, he
moved his bow hand in such a way as to inadvertently perform
exploratory surgery on the ear of the next contrabass player,
who must have experienced severe pain. The pain coaxed the
contrabass player to say something that the chelists in front
of him apparently took for "fightin' words."
By the time the movement was finished, several
musicians were seated on the floor, several others were
standing, a few were wet, a few were injured, and a fist-fight
was in progress.

The conductor successfully directed a majority of the
instruments to the end of the movement, and though the
audience was not expected to applaud until the next movement
was finished, there was a standing ovation.

The rest of the Mozart selection and the classical
guitar portion of the concert were both abandoned, I will
assume due to nervous trauma on the part of the conductor.

When the elegant audience left the concert hall, no one spoke
audibly about the goings on, but I can imagine that others
like myself were scarred.

Accessible Cupid

Dating can be complicated. Adding an extra set of wheels takes it to a new level. The misabled live with this as another dimention in romantic life. We can either live in a fog of annoyance, or we we can have fun with it. I usually choose the latter.

To the average man, females might be seen as a conquest. To those of us from the portable persuasion, a woman is a political campaign. You must (1) pique her interest, (2) make a show of sincerity then (3) clarify your intentions. Following this, you need to (4) establish an agenda then (5) put your plan into action. If you actually get to that point, you have entered the mutual unknown of individual uniqueness.

1. Accidentally knocking someone down or into my lap has become an ice-breaker for me. When that isn’t possible, I’ve been known to comment on a woman’s shoes. In my world, textured sidewalks, unusual doorknobs, belt buckles, and shoes as easier to remember than hairstyles and faces. The shoe thing works for two reasons. The first being that a woman thinks of her shoes as an extension of her personality, and if a man notices them, that means he’s interested in something more valuable to her than her cup size. This also works because a man showing interest in a woman’s accessories just might be gay and no eminent threat at all. She can think of you like a friend and not realize you have designs.

2. To convince a woman of your sincerity, from the vantage of a wheelchair, is the easiest part of the equation. If you start a conversation with, “From my unique perspective,” and indicate the chair with a smile, you have her both off-guard and reacting somewhat sympathetically. If you can use your handicap to arouse maternal instincts in a woman, you are not looked at with suspicion, you are in need. To some women, The needy are irresistible. Phrases like, “That was so kind,” and “You’re such a sweetheart,” place you firmly into the genuine category.

3. It’s at this point that the somewhat humorous pick-up lines start. For a wheelchair user, there are several comments that will illicit a smile, but will also make your intentions clearer. Any line that uses the term four-wheel drive is worth trying. My favorite is to ask, “Ever heard of four-wheel drive?” and cock one eyebrow. This gets a raised eyebrow from her when she realizes that, even though you’re sincere, you’re still a guy. A comment that compares your stature sitting up to your stature lying down leaves no doubt of what you’re up to. Unless the woman is a physical therapist or a masseuse, there are very few reasons to say this. As well as these types of lines, if you take things a step further into the crude factor, or you’ve both been drinking, you might suggest needing help to break in your mew wheelchair.

4. Establishing an agenda is actually the most difficult part of the romance cycle, when it involves a misabled person. For us, nothing happens on the spur of a moment. We have both appointments and equipment. An AB (able bodied) can say, “Excuse me while I slip into something more comfortable.” Rather than this enticing interlude, we might say something like, “Ignore anything you hear; I’m just rearranging some durable medical equipment.”

5. By this point, Miss Right Now must have a pretty adventurous spirit to not become a face on a milk carton. If that is the case, invite her in. May I suggest that certain medical implements used in traction can double as a trapeze.

Medical Establishment Obstacle Course

We, the misabled, fall into two categories. There are those who were born different and those who became different. Those of us who became due to a progressive condition probably see doctors with alarming regularity. Since the doctor's office actually caters to the infirmed, I sometimes wonder why it is often so difficult in terms of access.

The parking areas are interesting to me. There are a mandated number of spaces for the handicapped in most lots, due to the nature of their business. The problem here involves reality: Every cripple knows there are not enough blue spaces to accommodate both the handicapped and everyone else with a placard. Eventually, I usually just use two spaces in the south 40 and enjoy the scenery while rolling to the building in my wheelchair.

The more opulent the office is, the heavier the front door. They all automatically retract and will fight against pushing open. When a person on wheels pushes an immovable object, the very laws of physics dictate that the wheels will move rather than the object. The word push on a heavy door mocks the wheelchair user.

We learn techniques that usually work, and sometimes we resort to a running start. Now I am in the office. Some offices have been thoughtful enough to have a wheelchair parking spot marked in the waiting area. In most, you sit in the center and block traffic, but the examination tables bring us to the next level of troublemaking.

There is usually a retractable step for the able-bodied to use, so they know it's pretty far up there. For those of us who are vertically challenged due to permanent seating, that table is Everest, and we will make the attempt because it's there.

It's usually a major project, but I actually pull it off sometimes. The nurse who takes me to the room will look at the table and then look at me. She will ask, "Will you have any trouble getting onto the examination table?" I've often wanted to ask, "Do you have trouble walking on water?" I don't.

With a little help or extreme effort, I've usually made the transfer. Next stop, Radiology.

The x-ray technician is trained to put the patient into contorted positions that resemble letters from an unknown alphabet. Once posed, he will tip the patient to one side, at an impossible angle to maintain and ask, "Can you hold that position?" The able-bodied can't hold that position, so it's a cinch that the handicapped—especially if paralysis comes with the package—can't either. And to add insult to injury, he tells you not to breathe.

For many of these events, the doctor may want you in a hospital gown. This little outfit makes everyone's job easier but yours. For a user of durable medical equipment, getting dressed or undressed is a contact sport. Changing into the gown involves undressing and dressing twice. Not only does the medical staff want you in this humiliating frock, but they want you fatigued as well.

The whole visit to the doctor's office is fraught with situations that cause the handicapped visitor to experience knitted eyebrows, pursed lips, tensed neck muscles and sweat. I often avoid going altogether. During a recent, unexpected hospital visit, I learned that one of my doctors had gone bald. I learned that it had been a gradual process I missed altogether. That's how much I avoid going to the doctor

Wheels within Wheels and Wings

No matter what form of travel I choose, the wheelchair always poses problems. The problems seem insurmountable, but usually it’s only a matter of logic. Cars are awkward, airplanes are difficult, and buses are nigh unto impossible. Whatever way the misabled traveler chooses to travel will be fraught with humor for the outside observer.

Getting into the average automobile is a little like one of those puzzles, involving two twisted nails that must be separated and then linked back together….Actually, it’s a lot like that. In recent years, auto makers have been thoughtful enough to install a handle just above the door, to aid in this transfer, and it’s appreciated. Actually, I think the handle was intended to assist when Jack Spratt’s wife is being poured into the passenger window, but….

Finding a place to put the chair during transit–what with luggage, snacks, bottled water, reading material, electronic entertainment devices and various family members–is a task that requires a degree in physics. Since I am usually waiting calmly in the passenger seat for the travelogue to begin, I don’t really care. It just happens.

This process is repeated each time the itinerary calls for food stops, potty breaks or over-nighters. The one that puts a burr under my decubitus cushion is a periodic stop we make and refer to as “scratching our legs.”

Airplanes present a different problem. Wheelchairs are usually at least 25 inches wide. Airplane aisles are usually 22 inches wide. The airlines have solved this problem with what they call an aisle-chair . This is simply a narrow furniture dolly with a seat.

I transfer from the wheelchair to the aisle-chair, then the fun begins. They strap me to the dolly with two straps that run diagonally across my chest in opposite directions, and a standard seat belt. I asked once why the two diagonals were necessary. The flight attendant explained that they were required by FAA regulations. I can only guess that these are restraints in case I become violent before reaching my seat. Either that or we’re expecting a side impact from the beverage cart.

Once at my seat, it’s no great difficulty to transfer into the seat I’ve been assigned for the duration of the flight, but this seat poses another problem. The new problem involves the fact that handicapped people are almost always given aisle seats. Sure, the aisle seat is an easier transfer, but now I’m holding the people in the center and window seats as virtual hostages. If one or both need to leave their seats for a moment, they must first climb over me. And now that I’m mortared into place by my immobility, the restroom comes to mind.

The airlines are thoughtful and usually seat the handicapped near the restrooms. The problem remains that my legs just don’t work at all. A flight attendant once reasoned with me that the restroom was just across the aisle. Five steps might as well be 500 steps where my legs are concerned.

Getting off the plane is a simple reverse of getting on, but all bets are off when you discover that they’ve broken your wheelchair in cargo.

The only buses I’ve ridden on were the cross-town city variety. This is a nightmare that H.P. Lovecraft would have enjoyed writing about. Once past the complicated machinery of the wheelchair lift, they have regulations about securing the chair to the bus floor. They seem to be worried that the bus might suddenly achieve weightlessness. The complicated set of straps, hooks and latches they use for this purpose never actually work.

At almost all costs, you want to avoid most bus travel anyway. The reason being that buses, and the stations that spawn them, are incubators for the grotesque. These huddled masses yearn to breathe my free air. Some passengers appear to have spent most of a lifetime on the same bus, only changing seats whenever the bus tires are rotated.

The local bus systems are a guided tour to purgatory, and I’m always afraid that my wheelchair is strapped down for the main purpose of keeping me still when the vehicle begins its descent into the underworld. I wait for the bus driver to get on the intercom and introduced himself as Charon.

If I can’t roll there in my chair or drive there in my own car, I no longer really want to go.

Where the Keyboard Meets the Road

In order to keep a traffic ticket off my record, I recently tried traffic school online. This was a positive experience because I wasn’t forced to sit in a hotel conference room with people who obviously received both their driver’s licenses and their high school diplomas from boxes of Cracker Jacks.

I realize that my comment makes me sound like I’m being judgmental and thinking I’m better than the people with whom I previously attended traffic school. Well, that’s probably because I am, and I do. It frightens me to know that some of the people I saw there live in my same community and are probably still undiagnosed.

Online traffic school was also a negative experience because both my computer and the testing system is pitiful. If I think back a bit to before this, I can see that my attitude actually went south a few weeks earlier when I got the ticket in the first place.

I was driving on a residential street that connects two major thoroughfares, so very few people actually drive the posted limit. I was on my way to church, and I was in a hurry to work with the youth, on a program I had written for them.

I couldn’t argue because I was speeding a little, but I really wanted to blurt out, “I’m a cripple on my way to church, and I was only going five miles over the limit! What is wrong with this picture?” What I did instead was smile and say, “Thank you,” and drive the rest of the way slowly.

The questions in the online traffic school test are really quite simple, but I must question some of their validity. A question that asks what color the car was on the first page of the online and handbook is obviously there to see if you’ve read the pages before trying to take the test. The page in question was one of the pages I actually did read, but I not only didn’t notice what color the car was in the picture, I don’t remember even looking at the picture.

Another question asked what speed the speedometer showed on a specific picture of a dashboard. This turned out to be a trick question because the speedometer in the picture showed zero. Questions like this leave me wondering if the online test was written by people out of work due to the television writers’ strike. I can see the minds that write for late-night talk shows constructing tests like this.

Once you’re finished with the test, if you fail, you can retake the test as many times as necessary. You are only limited by five hours and your own endurance. They randomized the order of the questions and must have several extra questions that rotate into the test. I know this because I almost ran out of time and lost count of how many tries I made. After the first failure, I started writing down my answers and whether I got them right or wrong. The process of elimination eventually netted me the correct answers.

The whole experience was as unnerving, and I don’t think I learned anything except that I should pay attention to my dashboard and the colors of cars, rather than the road.

Treasures

I’m wondering if the things we buy on vacation, as souvenirs, aren’t sometimes things we could get at home. If this is the case, we don’t buy them when we visit Alvero Street, Chinatown or any number of discount malls and swap meets because we consider them junk. The other things we don’t buy at home, we do without because we really don’t need. But we buy these things on vacation. We then bring them home and placed them on some shelf. People come to our house and say, “Oh, I saw these at….” It takes us only little effort to explain that it’s not one of those cheap things. You know they don’t believe us.

We buy a common household items emblazoned with the names of tourist destinations. We buy cultural pieces that we’re told someplace is famous for. We also buy high-end items that don’t cost any less than at home, but hell, we’re on vacation.

Most generally, we will need extra luggage to go home because of all our new treasures, so we’ll buy a new bag as well. Once we get home, we will honor and cherish these touchstones to memory. Next year they will be in our yard sale.

I Worry about These Things

True, my personal paranoia runs deep, but it’s part of the world I live in. I’m at least normal, but there are certain things that give me pause. No, not pause—panic.

My main concern involves my friend indeed: The common carotid artery.

Like any high school graduate knows, the artery in question carries oxygen to the brain. If you stop the flow of oxygen to a person’s brain, he or she will lose consciousness. If the brain is deprived of oxygen for a longer period, the person will possibly lapse into a coma. Permanent brain damage in likely if this situation continues.

I like my brain to sustain as little damage as possible. None at all would be welcome.

In the luggage and travel section of any department store, you will find a nifty little accessory to make sleep more comfortable while a passenger on a train, a bus or an airplane. This accessory is an inflatable pillow that wraps around your neck. With the pillow in place, you can lean your head to one side and drift off to dreamland.

This harmless, little pillow scares me. Let me tell you why. My head being somewhat large (or so I’m led to believe), I figure it must weigh several pounds. If I fall asleep, I worry that the dead weight of my head, pressing on the pillow, will press the pillow firmly into the side of my neck and cut off the blood flow through my carotid artery.

At this point, I assume I would first lose consciousness, following which I would, no doubt, die. Of course, no one would think to even try reviving me because they wouldn’t want to disturb my nap.

My fear does not lack substantiation by science, but I don’t tell others about it.

For increased safety, modern seatbelts usually include a shoulder strap. The shoulder strap just happens to cross the base of the neck. When I buckle my seatbelt, I worry that the edge of the shoulder strap will be just tight enough to stop the blood flow through my good friend, the carotid artery.

This situation while driving doesn’t cause me concern that I will end up in a coma. No, I’ll just pass out, leaving my car without a conscious driver. Without a sentient life form at the wheel, my car would careen into oncoming traffic and maybe make the KFI Traffic Update.

Go ahead, laugh, but I bet that unexplained cases of people dropping dead or dozing off at the wheel could be attributed to this very problem.

I may be paranoid, but someday you’ll know why I unexplainably died while sleeping on the Red Eye.

Muster

Muster on a pleasure cruise is a little bit funny until you stop and consider what’s going on. It's a little like having a Halloween party in June because you hard there was a Satanic cult just down the street with human sacrifices on their agenda.

The faces of passengers range from comical to surly at being made to perform this ritual, and that which would otherwise be alarming is rendered grotesque when framed by a fluorescent orange life vest. After the herding and the lining up, you expect to be ear-tagged or branded.

If an emergency evacuation were to happen in the late evening, I’m amused by what I think this might look like. I see human cattle with pajamas and undergarments beneath their life vests. In the same emergency during dinner, I imagine there would be various types of gourmet food splattered upon formal wear.

I’ve seen enough disaster movies and at least three movies based on the sinking of the Titanic to know certain things. First of all, muster doesn’t happen. Instead, everyone scurries about like wet rats, and water gushes from almost everywhere. Second, if you escape but aren’t in a lifeboat, you will be sucked under by the submerging ship or freeze to death. Third, in the event that you survive, you will live a life of guilt for all those in steerage who died so you would have a place on an escape vessel. And last, the fact is that pretty much everyone dies except Molly Brown.

Muster is like a fire drill. No one takes it seriously, and no one remembers it in a crisis. There are only two things you really need to know if the cruise ship is sinking during your holiday. These things are that anything with the ship’s name can be sold on eBay, and while the ship is going down all the bars are open.

Could This Be Avoided?

Over and over again I see something on the highways and byways of America that saddens me, or even sickens me, though I must have seen it more times than I care to count. Each time I pass this familiar sight, I look and have to ask why. Though some tragedies are unavoidable, I think this one could probably be avoided almost altogether.

Marsupials are considered slightly higher on the smart-scale than, say cows, so why can’t opossums keep from getting run over by cars? They have common sense enough to carry their young in a pouch, rather than letting them hang on for dear life like monkeys, but then they go right out and challenge an internal combustion engine to a death match. It doesn’t take rocket science to know the outcome here.

Relatively speaking, the other side of that road is the great unknown to that opossum; it’s a long way over there. Even after Columbus discovered America, people didn’t jump the pond with any regularity until the airplane. Why can’t this furry thing just settle down on one side of the road or the other?

He could say, “Life is good here living under the Smith’s house. There are plants and grubs and an occasional treat from the garbage.” If nothing else, he might say, “Poor Joe hasn't been the same since he got that new Goodyear weave. I’m not repeating his mistake.” But apparently they don’t learn from the mistakes of others any better than human teenagers.

The opossum isn’t the fastest creature on the planet, so the odds are against him on surviving a trip across the road. If the odds were in his favor–or even a solid 50/50--it might be worth the risk. If what I’ve seen is accurate, most of these guys become road pizza.

I have two theories for why this animal-auto ballet happens. The first is that our fuzzy little friends actually plan the crossings during low-evening-traffic hours, but when the lights come over a hill or around a blind curve, they freak out and stand paralyzed in the path of certain doom. The second theory is that we have an entire branch of the marsupial family given to extreme depression. Their melancholy comes from the realization that they are just plain ugly. The kangaroo is cute and even funny, but the opossum looks like a freakishly large rat. Maybe they run out into the road simply to end it all.

Whether it’s counseling or instruction they need, the opossum needs something.

I see a final answer to the age-old imponderable of why the chicken crossed the road: The chicken must have crossed the road finally to show the opossum how it’s supposed to be done. Apparently the opossum is a slow learner.