things with wheels

2020-10-24

I was in a wheelchair confronted with having to scale a very tall, very steep flight of steps. There was no way around it. If I wanted to proceed, I would have to go up.

I had two dogs and a box of novels with me.

I stood up and shakily approached the stairs. I settled into a rhythm of climbing a step with the books under my arm, setting the books down, reaching back and pulling the wheelchair up and setting it down, then picking up the books again, and making sure the dogs weren’t tangled up.

After one or two steps, a big guy with a big dog had come up behind me. His dog had enough leash to get close to my dogs, and they were getting agitated and pulling against me.

I shouted at him, “A little more space please!” He turned and looked at me for the first time. I implored again, “We need a little more space, please!” And this time he backed off and my dogs settled down.

By the time I had climbed to the top, there were half a dozen or more people on the stairs, stuck behind me.

Now I had to climb down the other side. I placed the books down on the stairs and, impatient, kicked them down the steps. Going down went more quickly than going up.

At the bottom of the steps, I collapsed back into my chair, exhausted.

I motored through the park and around the corner to the library and dropped off the books. I left my wheelchair plugged in, charging outside the bathroom as I went in to use the toilet.

When I came back, my chair was missing.

I went and found Polly the security guard and asked for help finding my chair. Turns out Mike the custodian had picked it up in his rounds. He came back riding a tractor pushing two wheelchairs, one of which was mine. I thanked him and settled back into my chair, but it was kind of messed up and missing the seat cushion. I shifted around trying to get comfortable on the hard, bare metal.

Hils had somehow gotten her hands on enough cash to sell her car and buy a huge van and an even huger truck.

We went back to the house to get Lyle and Mile and showed them the van and truck through the window. All six of us can sleep in these cars! We can move out and live comfortably in the cars and travel around.

Later, I was driving Chung’s sports car with her in the passenger seat. She was navigating me to a parking garage in her neighborhood. I pulled into the narrow garage and she directed me to a small spot behind a column. I had to back up a couple times to make room for several cars that were trying to leave. I bumped into a car full of little kids, which caused much panic and alarm.

One of the little kids got out and placed small orange cones around their car, presumably to designate it as something not to hit with a car.

I awkwardly finagled my way into the tiny parking spot, and then the mom of the kids from the car I hit came over and started interrogating me about being here, saying that there were too many people trying to park here who don’t live here. I was busy and preoccupied with making sure the car was parked okay and wasn’t really paying that much attention to her.

I kept asking Chung if we needed to pay, or put up a decal or a sticker or something, and eventually found out that this was just free parking, no strings attached, other than an annoying woman who would follow you around asking if you belonged here.

Chung had the hood of her car popped and was fussing with something on the engine, trying to get the car to print.