December 2007 Archives
In this podcast, Tammy and I talk about Thalia Spice. The staff there was very accommodating of my wheelchair… a little too accommodating in fact. Our waitress showed me where the restroom was, held the restroom door for me, then proceeded to hold open the stall door for me too! So weird. Listen in to hear more about our “special night out.”
The other night, I saw a woman in a wheelchair and her boyfriend/husband strolling down Michigan Avenue hand-in-hand. They were perfectly in sync. He held her right hand, comfortably tugging her along. And she kept her left at the wheel to steer. I smiled, impressed by their practiced technique, and they nodded back in acknowledgement.
The brief exchange reminded me of a conversation I had ages ago with a friend about unwritten “rules of the road.” She drives a Jeep, and every time she sees another one, she and the other driver exchange friendly waves as they size up each other’s vehicles. She explained to me that this behavior is so common among Jeep owners that it might as well be printed in the car’s instruction manual.
Since having that conversation, I’ve made a concerted effort to smile and nod at every person in a wheelchair I pass, and I’ve given a lot of thought to the wheelchair rules of the road. These are the most amusing tips for walkies I’ve found on the net, and Wikipedia's guide to disability etiquette is extremely useful too (Thanks Karen!).
Be sure to let the folks at Vermilion know you have a wheelchair in your party before going there. A separate entrance leads to a wheelchair lift where the restaurant keeps its cleaning supplies. Once the cleaning supplies are removed from the lift, it’s onward to happy dining!
There is a guy who lives in my apartment building who is deaf. And apparently he uses an alarm clock that sounds like an air-raid siren. It unfailingly wakes up his downstairs neighbor.
“It’s no big deal when he turns it right off,” said the neighbor. “But when he stays at his girlfriend’s place on the weekends and forgets to switch it off, it blasts for hours!”
I’m guilty of a similar transgression. My walker makes a horrible scrapping noise on my hardwood floors, and once upon a time my downstairs neighbor left me a strongly worded note asking me to PLEASE stop moving my furniture around at night. She was mortified when she discovered it was my walker making that sound. But I’m so glad she said something to me.
Accommodations for people with disabilities are necessary and good. But it’s important to be aware of how they may impact others. Now I avoid using my walker at night.
