Unintended Consequences

     A few weeks ago, I decided to take my daughter to see a movie. She chose the latest horror flick, a genre I'm not particularly fond of (I still check my closet and under my bed before I turn off my light every night), but when you hand your kid that kind of power, it's bound to come back and bite you in the kiester.

We couldn't go to our small, local (and cheaper) theater, because they weren't showing this movie, we had to go to the exorbitantly-priced, dirty theater that only served the brand of cola I can't stand and which has more parking spaces for the attached pizza restaurant than they do for theater patrons (handicapped theater patrons, that is). Grumbling under my breath, I faked a grin and told my daughter that we would go to the 3:50 pm show - early enough to catch matinee pricing, late enough to avoid the church crowd. At 3:30, we got in the van and made the twenty minute trek to the theater. We had to park in the side lot, since the one handicapped space designated for vans was taken by a Chevy Malibu. I got out and rolled up onto the sidewalk, only to discover there was a car parked on the sidewalk, resulting in me having to roll in the actual road right-of-way to get to the door of the theater. I'm all for boosting profits by capitalizing on advertising revenue, but to allow car dealerships to place cars for sale in the middle of the sidewalk, especially when the vast majority of the handicapped parking spaces are located on the side of the building, is rather disrespectful to customers who would prefer to go to an actual car dealership to shop for cars.

We make it inside without being obliterated by passing traffic, and make our way to the ticket counter, where we are greeted by a fresh-faced young woman with blonde hair and a sparkling smile. Her friendliness helped to dissolve some of my crusty resolve to be grumpy about having to go to this theater, but my frown returned when she explained that our tickets would cost a dollar more because the movie was being shown in a VIP suite. I told her I didn't want to be in a VIP suite, but that I just want to pay the regular matinee price and go sit in a normal, sticky, plastic theater seat in a pauper suite. She smiled, but her eyes were glancing around, presumably to locate a member of the security staff to protect her from this crazy old lady demanding to sit in an ancient, moldy theater suite. She adopted a kindergarten teacher's voice and sweetly declared that I had no choice in the matter because the movie was only being played in the VIP Suite. Well-played, Marcus Theaters, St Cloud. Way to force your customers to pay more for movie tickets.

Downright pissed off now, but not wanting to embarrass or upset my daughter, I paid for the tickets and suggested we get a couple of sodas and a box of candy to share. We got our drinks, trying to avoid the sticky mess that they were trying to pass off as a beverage counter, and a box of Dots, and headed to our VIP Suite, which I assumed came with maitre'd service and a personal attendant, but there wasn't even anyone stationed to open the door for us. Pffft.

I don't like to sit in my wheelchair during movies. I prefer to sit in the theater seat. If I sit in my chair, I'm taller than the person sitting beside me in the regular seat, and I like to get out of my wheelchair now and then. My butt likes variety. I got into the pleather seat and sat back to cover my eyes for the next ninety minutes. I suppose I should have felt lucky, there are places that charge a lot more than $8.50 for a 90 minute nap.

The movie, it turned out, was interesting, and quite good. I suppose I felt this way because it was based on a true story, and I was familiar with several of the real-life people whom some of the movie characters represented. My bathtub-sized Diet Pepsi was sitting heavily in my bladder after fifty-three minutes, and I needed to use the restroom. I made the Herculean leap from my seat into my wheelchair, missed, and ended up on the floor of the aisle. It was sticky. I managed to get back into my chair with my daughter's help, giggling the entire time, and giggling even harder when the horror-movie music in the background made my plight sound somehow terrifying. All we needed was for a maitre'd to come in and shine a flashlight up under his chin to complete the scene. But that would have cost another dollar, so we had to settle for a mediocre comedy-horror scene. Maybe I should have hoped for Tim Conway and Don Knots instead.

I managed to get to the ladies' room, passing a brand new ladies' room along the way because, during the theater's recent remodel, they did not find it necessary to add wheelchair-accessible stalls to the shiny new restrooms. By the time I got into the restroom, I thought my bladder was going to burst. There are at least fifteen stalls in that restroom. Fifteen. Thirteen doors hung open. Two were occupied. The two that were occupied? Naturally, they were the only two wheelchair-accessible stalls. In one was a young woman changing her clothes. It turns out that that particular restroom played double duty as the locker room for employees. In the other was a grandmother with her grandchild. I knew this by the woman's creaky voice, and by the rolled-down knee socks balled up at her ankles. This pleasant woman was loudly demanding that the child in her care stand up to pee. Yes, you read that correctly, she was telling a little girl to stand up to pee. "You can only sit down on toilet seats at the place where you live!", she declared. Ah ha!!!! This explains why I so often encounter toilet seats covered in pee - little girls are being told by their grandmothers to stand up to pee!!!

The problem is, people in wheelchairs cannot avoid sitting directly on the toilet seat. I knocked on the stall door and, in my most friendly voice, told the woman that if she was going to insist on standing up to pee, she should not do it in the stall used by people who cannot stand up. She didn't understand what I was trying to say, and told her grandchild not to go out of the stall because "there's a crazy white woman out there!".

*sigh*

I had now missed twelve minutes of the movie, and I feared I might miss the next thirty-six hours of my life due to a burst bladder and the subsequent surgery I would have to endure to repair it, not to mention the intensive cleaning my chair would require after such a debacle.

Finally, after eight minutes, the young girl who was changing her clothes found her way out of the stall. She walked out perfectly fine, but developed an instant limp when she saw me sitting there. I guess she thought if she faked a limp, she could justify taking eight minutes in a handicapped stall instead of using one of the handicapped stalls in one of the brand new bathrooms (oh they have handicapped-accessible stalls, just not wheelchair-accessible stalls. There is a big difference.). I laughed out loud as I rolled into the stall.

It took a full two minutes to empty my overflowing bladder.

On my way back to the theater, I stopped the friendly blonde girl who had sold me the tickets. She was carrying a broom and dustpan, doing her job, making minimum wage, and I became "that person", the one I hate when I see them acting out in public. I ranted to her about how awful that theater is, from their tricky pricing strategies to selling cars in the middle of their sidewalk to not having automatic door openers (or at least a button to engage an automatic door opening mechanism), to the sticky beverage counters, to the obscenely small number of wheelchair-accessible stalls in the bathrooms. I told her she should let her manager know that whoever the architect and ADA consultant were on their remodel should be fired. She just gaped at me.

When I was done, I felt ashamed of myself, and I apologized to her. She makes $7.15 an hour and had nothing to do with the design of the theater. I yelled at her to alleviate my own stress about the situation instead of taking it to management, as I should have.

There is no excuse to act like a jerk toward those who can do nothing.

I rolled back into the theater as the closing credits were scrolling.

Marcus Theaters, you have lost my business, but that wonderful girl who sold me the tickets, and who subsequently endured my pent-up anger? You should hang onto her. She, along with the other amazing young people you have working for you, for peanuts, are your redemption.

Waiting Room Encouragement

There is nothing I like more than making people smile. It isn't hard to do. All it takes is a smile to receive one in return. I think I may get a high return on my smile investment because I take care of my teeth. I like to use dissolving white strips - they sit on your teeth and taste like peppermint patties and glue as they melt away the previous day's indulgences of Diet Coke and caramels that left their yellow insignias behind.

But even if my teeth were as yellow as a banana peel, I would still flash a smile at everyone I meet. A smile lets the recipient know they were noticed. A lot of the people I meet along my path tell me that they often feel invisible, as though they could disappear and no one would notice. We all feel that way at times. But when you are going about the boring tasks of your normal routine, and a random stranger looks directly at you and smiles, you either look behind you to make sure they are actually smiling at you, or you smile back. Sometimes you do both.

No one should ever believe for a moment that a smile is not meant for them.

I recently spent a lot of time in waiting rooms at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. It's an amazing place. The air is thick with equal portions of hope and expectation. People go to Mayo Clinic when everyone else tells them there is no hope.

While waiting for appointments, sitting in well-lit, spacious, comfortable waiting rooms, I met a lot of incredible people. One woman was especially talkative, and she told me about all her ailments and woes. I listened intently and offered her encouragement. When she was done giving me her medical history, I asked her what she likes to do in her free time. She looked at me and said, "I am sick, so I don't really like to do anything in my free time." I smiled at her, cocked my head to the side, and said, "so you just lay in bed and do nothing all day but think about the fact that you're sick?" She seemed a little angry for a minute, and I know she thought I was being insensitive, so I added, "have you ever sat and worried about something for so long that you started to feel your heart race and your hands shake and your body ache from the stress of worrying?" She replied that she had, when her daughter was very sick a few years prior. I smiled and asked, "how is your daughter now?"
"Oh, she's doing great!", the woman replied. I smiled and nodded.
"When we think about something negative all the time, it affects our physical well-being. The best way to trick your body into feeling better is to distract your mind with fun and positive activities."
"I needed to hear that", she told me. I smiled at her again as my pager signaled it was my turn to be seen by the doctor. "You should give talks to people!" she yelled as I rolled toward the waiting nurse.
"Naw!" I hollered back, "I prefer to sneak up on people in waiting rooms!"
I can still hear her laughter.

A listening ear, a kind heart, a positive outlook, and most importantly, a smile, can have such an impact on someone. So get out there and start giving away smiles! You'll be glad you did.

Unmentionables? Pfft

Like most people, bathrooms are a part of my daily life. Bathrooms are also where some of my most memorable moments happen, and I 'm not just talking about those moments when the Metamucil finally kicks in.

No one likes to talk about what goes on behind closed doors - oh sure, they're an open book about their sex lives, but mention poop and the average person goes apopleptic. But the raw truth is that nearly all of us poop more than we have sex, so why the shroud of secrecy?

I break a lot of toilet seats. The first time it happened, I was horrified. I screeched in a high-pitched, terrified, girly girl voice "Oh my God!!! My ass must be getting HeeeeUGE!!!" and then spent three hours trying to view my ass from a tiny cosmetic mirror that I laid on my wheelchair seat as I hovered over it by holding myself up on the arms on the chair. All I could see was an extremely close-up view of my hoo hoo, which only made me move closer to the toilet so I could hurl.

By the third broken seat, I'd come to terms with both the reality that my ass is, indeed, growing, and that toilet seats are now made of the cheapest plastic available on the planet. For these reasons, my toilet is now adorned with a thirteen pound wooden monstrosity with steel hinges. If I break this one, I'm applying to be the toilet seat Kung Fu champion of the world...and I wouldn't bet against myself.

Public restrooms come with their own sets of rules. One of the most important rules is to always knock on the door of the wheelchair-accessible stall and ask the person camping out inside if they're going to be long (of course, I peek under the door first to make sure they aren't mobility challenged). The responses I get are varied. Sometimes I am met with silence. Other times I am met with "use another stall". I love that response. If there is no one else in the restroom, I will proceed to attempt to enter another stall, my wheels ramming against the narrow door frame, my chair coming nowhere near to fitting through the doorway. Even if it could, the regular stalls are not deep enough for me to close the door behind me once I get close enough to transfer to the toilet. It's not that I have an aversion to peeing with the door open, it's just that most other people aren't comfortable with that concept in the United States. But me ramming my chair against the door frame shakes all the stall walls, which I am certain causes the person in the wheelchair-accessible stall to feel very happy they are already sitting on the toilet. While this may seem like it would be very fun, it isn't. There is a reason I go into a public restroom, and it isn't to help resolve a constipation issue for some unsuspecting person. Having poor bowel and bladder control means that being forced to "wait" can also mean being forced to sit in a pool of my own secretions. I do wish Pampers came in adult sizes. They smell so nice...like baby powder and second chances.

I have a secret shame: I love the reaction of people as they exit the wheelchair-accessible stall and see me sitting there, a serene smile on my face (hey, you'd smile too if you got to buy new pants as often as I do). Most of them hurry past me, muttering under their breath (probably about how stinky I am, or how rude it is for me to sit there and make them feel embarrassed. I don't know. I can never make out what they're saying). I don't really blame these folks. The wheelchair-accessible stall is huge. Who doesn't enjoy a little elbow room while evacuation their bowels? Those standard stalls are narrow, and dark. A woman could insert a tube of lipstick instead of a tampon under those lighting conditions. A claustrophobic woman could go into a full-blown panic attack in such a confined space. Frankly, I think all teenagers should be forced to spend a night in a standard public restroom stall just to discourage them from a life of crime. An honest look at public restrooms reveals some very interesting facts: 1) People prefer larger stalls. 2) One wheelchair-accessible stall isn't sufficient in most public restroom facilities. People would shop longer if the public restroom facilities at major shopping centers and large stores were designed to these principles of human nature. No woman wants a tube of lipstick inside her lady parts, and let's face it, putting lipstick on that thing won't make it look any better.

I was once in a bar in upstate New York where the only women's restroom was so small the door into the restroom couldn't close with my chair inside. Needless to say, there was also not a wheelchair-accessible stall, forcing me to adopt a Herculean means to hurl myself onto the toilet from outside the stall. A woman stood in the doorway of the bathroom as I peed in plain view of the nice folks playing pool just outside the door. I'm hopeful they were all so drunk they thought they were hallucinating, because if they weren't, I fear I have seared the eyeballs of a whole lot of innocent men and women with an image they cannot un-see.

Soap dispensers are another challenge. Sometimes, they are all set on the back wall and the vanity counters are too deep. Why can't designers just make a point to always put a few randomly placed soap dispensers at locations where children can reach them? If they did this, there would never be an issue for those in wheelchairs. Public restroom designers, however, do not think in terms of convenience, they think in terms of design. The two concepts are often poor bedfellows. When I cannot reach the soap dispensers, I must ask another woman to put the soap on her hand, and then transfer it to mine. This would be fine if it were a unisex restroom - I could wait for some dapper don to come out and ask him to help a damsel in distress...but alas, public restrooms are not unisex. It's awkward to ask a stranger to do something so intimate with me, but it has yielded some interesting conversations with some pretty cool women. There really isn't anything that brings two strangers together quite like a hand-to-hand soap transfer in a public lavatory

Paper towel holders set high on the wall, resulting in water rolling up my sleeve to my armpit when I reach up to grab one after washing my hands, is another pet peeve. I've learned to grab my paper towels before I wash my hands. Those dang blow-dry hand dryers are even worse. They are nearly always located on the opposite wall from the sinks, meaning I have to roll to them with dripping wet hands. Dripping wet hands means dripping wet handrails, which means my hands slip on them as I try to roll myself. It's not pleasant. Sometimes I press the button on all of the hand dryers in a row and roll back and forth beneath them to try to dry my wheels a bit. Since only about half of the women who use public restrooms actually bother to wash their hands, I only have angry glares from half the women to deal with as they stand there with dripping fingertips. I just grin and shake my long hair from side to side as the warm air blows it around sexily. One of these days, I'm gonna get "discovered"!

Someday, I'm going to write a letter to the Lavatory Design Association and ask them to make all stalls wheelchair-accessible, and outfit them with lighted toilets with pleather seats, armrests, phone charging stations, and to have a full-length mirror on the back wall (to ensure no toilet paper tails). It would also be nice to have a private sink and automatic paper towel dispensers in each stall. While I'm at it, I'm going to suggest wet wipes by Evian, because everyone deserves a pampered ass. Someday, but for now, I'd settle for some bacon-flavored Metamucil and a larger cosmetic mirror.

Hoover Damn

I love vacuuming. The satisfying sound of dirt being sucked right up out of my carpets, whisked away into a plastic prison to await execution by dumpster, makes my heart pound with excitement. Sometimes, when the floors aren't very dirty, I eat a sleeve of crackers and sweep the crumbs off the table right onto the floor, just to ensure I get to hear my faithful Hoover slurp them up. Vacuuming under the desk in my son's room is especially thrilling - a virtual carpet of Doritos and Sun Chips top the actual carpet in a cheesy topping of crunchy delights. I mow over that crispy little snack graveyard with a gusto that borders on hysteria.

 

The progression of my illness, however, has made vacuuming a little difficult. By "a little difficult", I mean it now requires superhuman strength, agility, maneuverability, and patience, none of which I possess. Every time I go in the coat closet to get my coat, shoes, or Swiffer Sweeper (which I think the vacuum cleaner harbors secret resentment toward), there it is, staring at me, egging me on, cajoling me into a wrestling match. I named it Krull, because it just seems like a good name for something made of plastic and metal and designed to try to kill me. Most days I resist vacuuming, but when a roll down the carpeted hallways sounds like a truck driving down a gravel road, I have to give in and enter the ring.

 

I have my wrestling costume - a Carolina sweatshirt, Chicago Bears sweatpants, and electric blue sneakers. If the beast decides to suck me up one day, I will be readily identifiable by those brightly colored shoes. I know when I enter the ring with Krull I will be sweating, so it seemed fitting to wear a sweat-friendly costume. Matches with Krull can be dangerous, and often result in serious injuries – bruises, scrapes, and the occasional tears. Sometimes, Bandaids and antibiotic ointment are required to treat the injuries. These are dark times.

 

Round one begins when I open the door to the closet. I stare at Krull, let it know I am not afraid by squinting at it menacingly. Krull just sits there in its dark corner, unfazed by my posturing. I gather up my courage and roll into the closet. I get a mild case of whiplash when my wheels hit the pile of shoes on the floor, jerking my head forward violently. I wince but quickly twist my expression around into a scowl, not wanting Krull to believe I am weak. I curse the shoes, but look at Krull as I do it, so the stoic machine knows I won’t tolerate any nonsense. I lean forward, grab its handle to give it a hearty tug, and realize too late that I forgot to engage the brakes on my chair. I fly forward and land face-first on the pile of shoes.

 

Round one winner - Krull.

 

Round two – back in my chair, pride dusted off, wrestling costume straightened. I glare at Krull and declare “You’re going down!” in a low, gritty voice. Krull just sits there. I grab its handle, lock my brakes, and give it a hearty yank. Freed from its closet prison, Krull stands petulantly in my hallway. I sneer at it, unwind the cord, and look for an electrical outlet. My condo is laid out with a pass-through kitchen, which means that I must choose the outlet very carefully. The wrong selection could result in me becoming entangled in an electrical cord noose for days before anyone discovered me. I select one on the wall just outside the kitchen. I roll over to Krull, lower the handle, place it between my thighs, and proceed to roll from the hallway into the kitchen. Krull suddenly veers left and hits the doorframe, and my lady parts scream as the handle slams into them. I drop the handle, roll to the freezer, and pull out a bag of frozen peas to sit on.

 

Round 2 winner – Krull.

 

Round three is forfeited when I roll over the cord and Krull chews a hole in it. Pink duct tape applied to cord injury. Fresh bag of frozen corn placed under my still-smarting nether regions.

 

Round three winner – Krull by forfeit.

 

Round four – I drink a glass of wine. I have succeeded in vacuuming a nine-square-inch area of my kitchen. I glance at the broom standing in the corner and decide that the kitchen was its domain. Slowly, ever so slowly, I roll into the living room, pushing Krull ahead of me with its handle resting between my thighs, a full can of Diet Coke strategically placed between it and my tender areas. I shift uncomfortably in my seat to reposition the bag of frozen corn, and wonder if I should move to a condo with hardwood floors so I could send Krull to the crusher. I reach down and press the power button, and Krull roars to life. I push the handle forward, realize too late I forgot to engage my brakes again as I move backward, and I drop the handle. Cursing angrily, I lean down to grab the handle as Krull’s self-propulsion continues to pull him forward. I lose my balance as I attempt to grasp the handle, and slip from my seat, my hoo hoo hitting the foot plate, breaking my fall. My scream may have been heard in New Jersey. I roll to the kitchen for a bag of frozen green beans and stuff it inside my sweatpants.

 

Round four winner – Krull.

 

Round five – I drink a glass of wine and roll around the vacuum cleaner, sizing him up. The bastard just stands there staring back at me. I finally grab the handle and hit the power button with an angry thumb. Krull lurches forward and sucks up the edge of the area rug.

 

Round five winner – Krull.

 

Round six – I drink a glass of wine. I stare at Krull. He stares back. That son of a bitch is taunting me! I pull the rug out of Krull’s teeth and hit the power button. Krull chokes on a paper clip necklace.

 

Round six winner – Draw.

 

Round seven – I drink a glass of wine and stare at him. He stares back. Did that asshole just WINK at me!?? I put the cord between my teeth and roll to plug it into another outlet. I roll over it by accident and have to check my teeth in the bathroom mirror to make sure none were yanked out when the wheels jerked the cord out of my mouth.

 

Round seven winner – Krull.

 

I pour a glass of wine, roll down the hall, enter my bedroom, close the door, and climb into bed with my frozen vegetable soup stuffed in my pants.

 

Before drifting into a wine-induced coma, I mentally add “lady part injuries” to the list of vacuuming hazards, and vow to hire a housekeeper first thing in the morning.