Thought Snax

Shit people say to spouses of people who use wheelchairs:

My favorite “I”m so sorry” experience was in my first trial as a young lawyer, when Tim — who was an associate at the same fancy-pants DC law firm that I was — came to watch.  On a break, our loathsome opposing counsel came up to me and said, out of the blue, “I’m so sorry.”  Given the quantity of serious litigation bullshit he had engaged in, I was glad he saw fit to apologize, but thought it was better directed to the senior partner.  I was starting to say something about that when he added, “about your husband…”  Honestly, I still didn’t understand:  Tim wasn’t assigned to the case; what could this dude possibly mean?  He had to stumble on to say something about “injury” and “wheelchair” before it finally dawned on me.  Needless to say, I was speechless.

Years later, I actually wrote and submitted a “Modern Love” column to the New York Times after some lady walked up to us at a baseball game and said something about me being a good caretaker.  How can you explain in a sentence how ordinary life is?  How care is given and taken in equal measure?  Unfortunately, my column couldn’t compete with other important dispatches from the front lines of human relationships, for example, looking for a date on Craigslist or overthinking your boyfriend’s slippers.

That’s the great thing about the blog:  the only thing standing between my thoughts and publication is my own good judgment.  Such as it is.

Having thoroughly enjoyed Shit Sighted People Say to Blind People, Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls, and Shit White Girls Say to Arab Girls, I decided it would be hilarious to make a video out of some of the stupid shit people have said to Tim* over the years.  Only problem, of course:  I have no video production skills, not to mention equipment.  So — as with a couple of previous posts — I relied on the cartoon people over at xtranormal and created this.   I’m sure it doesn’t measure up to the videos that inspired it, but on the upside, I only wasted three hours on it.

*  Yes, it’s weird that it’s me (a walkie) and not Tim who made this little video, but he’s busy actually practicing law, or possibly (we can only hope!) drafting his first guest blog post.  Stay tuned!!

Flew home from Portland, wheelchair fail, and two very different court decisions in a short period of time:

1. Swearing.
2. Unhelpful improvisation by Amy.
3. Searching for lost parts and reassembly.
4. Helpful improvisation by Dustin.*
5. Canine supervision.
6. Calling wheelchair repair place.
7. Calling back several hours later and finding out they’ve never heard of you.
8. Two days of immobility in front of computer drafting a brief addressing the same effing issues we addressed in 2003.**
9. Finding a new wheelchair repair place.
10. Getting call back from owner of company, who sends competent, friendly employee, who makes three separate trips to our house in one day, resulting in success.
11. Sending FTD Thank You cookie box to new place, hoping that bribery through sweets will result in future quick repairs.
12. Finally getting out of the house to complete repairs using vodka and french fries.

Did I mention Rocky Mountain Medical Equipment?  We love you, Alan!

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* OK his etsy shop doesn’t have anything to do with wheelchair repair, but his designer messenger bags are very cool.

** Not strictly speaking a part of every wheelchair repair event, but made this one especially fun for Tim.

Although it is with some trepidation that I wade back into the airplane security discussion, I have to relate this short but bizarre tale, one that would indeed be have been ameliorated by profiling.

When we fly, which we do often, Tim likes to devote the flight time to catching up on the sleep he loses each night composing new and more complex databases in his head.  To create conditions conducive to sleep, he drapes a blanket over his head.  He has passed dozens of flights over the past few years next to me, doing his imitation of Cousin Itt.

On our flight out to San Francisco, however, he was informed that this was not permitted.  Post-9/11 security precautions prohibit covering your head while on an airplane.

Why?  We asked.

“Well, since the Detroit flight when a would-be terrorist covered himself with a blanket and assembled a bomb, it has been illegal to cover your head on a flight.”

That would seem to suggest that covering his HANDS would be prohibited.  Could he perhaps cover his head but leave his hands exposed?

“No — it’s just your head you can’t cover.”

So, under this rule, he could in fact cover his hands and assemble a bomb so long as his head was uncovered?

“Um, right”

But this makes no sense!  He can’t even *use* his hands.  He couldn’t assemble a bomb if he wanted to.

“I could have the police and airline security waiting for you when the plane lands.”

Seriously.  This was the flight attendant who had seen us board the plane and seen the power wheelchair be wheeled out the galley door onto the belt loader.  (Don’t ask!)  And she was telling Tim he couldn’t sleep in his preferred cocoon because he might assemble a bomb.

Hey, Bruce, this situation calls for profiling:  of people WHO CAN USE THEIR HANDS.

Turns out that won’t be necessary.  When we landed at SFO, I quietly asked a different flight attendant whether he could tell us where we could find that rule so we could look it up and read it.  He quietly told us that there was no such rule, and that he had quietly told the first flight attendant that, and gently suggested that she apologize.

That’s right, she had woken Tim up, argued with us about quadriplegic bomb assembly, and threatened to have us arrested, all based on a rule that she invented out of whole cloth on the spot.