Gimp awareness day

Offspring's chic haircut salon was in downtown Raleigh. Its an unexciting downtown generally speaking and really run down with the exception of one street that was renovated. But this was not the street we were on. The contrast between the new construction area where we live and downtown Raleigh was rather stark - not just in look and feel, but most importantly to us, in accessability.

First, we parked in a parking lot where there was no sidewalk connecting the lot where we parked to the salon entrance; I undershot it by one parking lot. So Wheeler had to wheel it out in the street. That wasn't so bad. Then after we left the salon we wanted to find a place to eat. In looking for a place to eat, we encountered:

• Run down broken up sidewalks that posed hazards for man and beast - especially the man in the large, heavy powerchair and the beast attached to the side of said chair.
• Curb cuts that were rudimentary at best, but then ramped up onto sidewalks with an up or down angle so steep that his wheelchair would not go up them, which forced him into the street instead.
• A rough and bumpy railroad track crossing that freaked me out because I was (likely irrationally) afraid that his wheel would get caught in the big rough divots of the tracks.
• A restaurant that put out chairs and tables on the sidewalk such that it took up the entire sidewalk - meaning, he could not roll through. Able bodied pedestrians could squeeze around the chairs by skirting around the tree between the sidewalk and the road, but wheelchairs don't skirt. I moved all of the chairs, pushed the tables in and moved their velvet rope type enclosure that was meant to block off the tables and chairs to let him and Dog through. Then I left all of the tables and chairs there 'cause it really annoyed me they blocked the entire sidewalk.
• There were places where the sidewalk was closed, which meant we had to either cross the street to use the (run down, narrow, obstacled) sidewalk on the other side of the road, or he had to wheel out in the street where a car could easily sideswipe Dog or them both. I absloutely insisted that he cross and use the sidewalk on the other side of the street and then he was peeved at me because (as he said) he's been gimpy for 19 years and knows how to roll around safely .... but I don't want him dead! It's not him that I worry about, its the idiots behind the wheel who don't expect a wheelchair and a dog on the street. So I chose his temporary ire to a possible car vs. wheelchair/dog problem.
• Most stores/restaurants had a handicapped entrance somewhere, but it was in a funny place or was a really circuitous route to get in. That wasn't so bad in and of itself, we've had to do that before, but never at every single place we went to. After about the third time, I began to feel sorta excluded, I guess is the way to say it. Even though we could get in. It's hard to explain without sounding like a crip with a chip, as Wheeler puts it. It was separate but equal. Except it didn't feel equal. I'm really not sure how else to explain that.
• Then to top it all off, when we left the restaurant and looped back around the block to where we parked, there was no sidewalk (again). It was actually a wide road, and very lightly traveled, so I wasn't worried that we'd be maimed, and us walking there didn't impinge on the roadway at all because the shoulder was very wide. But a kindly gentlemen in a brand new Camry drove past us, accelerated as he did, and laid on his horn while making a gesture at us of "what the hell are you doing on the road, get out of my way!". Oh, ok. Soooooooooo sorry that his WHEELCHAIR and broken neck inconvenienced you in some unknown way. I was torn because running up to him at the stopsign a half block up from us and inform him that Wheeler's wheel cost more than his brand new shiny car and feeling like I'd been socked in the stomach.

By the time we left, I felt really disillusioned and kinda down. The thing is that I am famously oblivious to Wheeler's disability - I guess its part of why I answered his personal ad, which led to our courtship and marriage. Chair shmair, who cares. I wear shoes he wears wheels. After a week of meeting each other, he asked me "are you sure you don't mind that I can't move my arms and legs?". I looked at him quizzically then said "does it bother you that I can move mine?".

But when the obstacles of disability were so in-my-face all afternoon, it just sucked. I was glad to come home to our new construction snooty suburb with brand new sidewalks, curb cuts everywhere and businesses with accessible entrances.

You see things with new eyes when you look at the world from that of a seated position.