Ghosts In The Basement

It's Friday morning. The sun is shining and the sky is clear. Ricky has gone off to work and Rosa is here cleaning. I have my coffee and am in my chair, but soon I will be off to the vampire station to get blood drawn and tested for my PT/INR levels. It is a routine morning, very near a normal morning.

I went out last night as I do most Thursday nights, to play "Name That Tune" at a local pub. I enjoy getting out, being social, hanging with friends. I enjoy the music and dancing, yes, dancing in a wheelchair. I get to laugh and talk with people, to be active and alive. It was very near a normal Thursday evening.

On my way out of the pub the owner approached me and asked if I was the guy bitching about the handicapped parking spot. He was about 6 foot 3 inches tall, a giant from down in my wheelchair. So I looked at him and said "Yes. Come with me and I will show you why!" He followed. We went out to the parking area where my truck was parked and he started to say he really didn't like listening to people bitch about things. So I said "Just let me show you."

We talked for a moment about some of the logistics related to the challenge of even having handicapped parking. The pub is very old for Calgary, over 50 years old; it is "grandfathered" from handicapped access requirements. The building itself used to be a mortuary and there are stories about ghosts in the basement. I don't know that spending eternity in a pub is such a bad thing, unless you really want quiet nights. But if you are a ghost, do night and day matter than much, especially in a basement?

Anyway, after some chat about logistics he says "I don't see any problems with this spot." So I showed him my rather large truck and he said "Get a smaller car!" Obviously I was having none of that, so once again I said "Let me show you what it takes for me to get into and out of your parking spot."

I proceeded to show him the challenges of getting my wheelchair in and out of my truck. I showed him how I transferred onto the lift system and began to show him the wheelchair crane. Then he got excited. As with all men, we are just boys when it comes to trucks and cranes and lifts and such. It's mechanical; it's exciting. Suddenly he was onside, suddenly he saw my reality, and it was fun! It was also challenging in a small space and he saw that too.

In the end we agreed that it was an important thing to fix. He, faced with the costs and time needed to mount a sign on a metal post filled with cement, along with the hassle of getting a sign painted on the ground, assured me I had been "heard". He also said he would do it when he could, meaning in his own time and not mine.

I have two choices here. I can go to the pub each Thursday night and struggle with the parking, or I can stop going until he puts a proper handicapped spot in place. If I stop going, I stop acting as a reminder. If I keep going, maybe he will become irritated enough to make the change. I think I'll keep going.