on wheelchairs*

*or, 'rolling on someone else's wheels', except that was too obscure ...

In the past MONTH of being incapacitated by this sprained ankle, I've twice visited a mall and borrowed a wheelchair to get around.

Obviously I looked just like this ...

(the cast of Push Girls - a reality show about sexy young things with spinal conditions)

Anyhoo, being in a wheelchair is ... educational. And something I now feel everyone should try and experience.
Go to a mall, claim whatever fragility is required, and spend an hour cruising in a wheelchair. Then take it back, walk back out in to your life and be grateful.

My Mum left me in the grocery store for a bit. Shopping basket on my lap and a short shopping list, I was dizzy with the freedom of being alone in public for the first time in weeks.
But ...

The bread I wanted was down an aisle too narrow to get through. The affordable cream cheese was too high to reach. The milk with the desired expiry date was too far at the back of the fridge. The veggie bins were too high. Ditto the crackers, and the tampons, and the wine.

People were kind, the shop staff offered to help before I had to ask, and kindly fellow shoppers didn't mind passing me things. But I had to ask, autonomy was not an option, and asking someone to pass you a specific box of tampons, 'No, not those ones, the blue box, yes the ones for medium flow', is not ... ideal.

People were happy to move to the side to let me pass, once they'd established where my voice came from ('Sorry, I'm down here'), but always with an overly-apologetic gaze, and cringey sympathetic eyes.
'What could be wrong,' I'd see them think, 'she looks so young (cough cough) and fit.'

I didn't need to draw money, but a friend who spent the last few weeks of her pregnancy in a wheel-chair pointed out that all the ATM's were too high for wheelchair users too.

It was such a small experience, I didn't need to negotiate bathrooms or public transport, but it was an enormous eye-opener.
People are in wheelchairs for  hundreds of different reasons. The majority I'm sure are completely capable of looking after themselves in every other way, but even the most 'conscious' environments are really hard to operate in.

Lesson learnt.