It’s worth clearing up this misconception. For no other reason than that I think it’s an interesting way to consider the predicament of a wheelchair user.
As most things are best explained through an example, consider parking a car. It’s pretty nice that almost anywhere I go I can drive straight to the front of the parking lot and get a front row spot. And, in America, I drive everywhere and there’s always a parking lot. This sounds like a nice thing – I get to park close. Being close is actually secondary here, what’s truly important is having room to open the car door so the wheelchair can fit through and when I get in the car, I can open the door enough so I can deconstruct the chair to put in the car.
The pinch is this: if all the spots are taken, I drive away. Doesn’t matter why I’m there or anything. I can’t park anywhere else. It’s not a ‘get to park close with wide spots’ it’s a ‘have to park in a wide spot.’ I’ve tried before to park in a normal spot. When I got out of the car, there wasn’t a car next to mine. When I went to get back in, there was a car there and I somehow managed to get in, but with great struggle, and never again will I try.
Even though a close spot with room sounds nice, it’s still a limitation. And it’s actually inescapable even in a handicap spot. Once I was at a grocery store, I parked in a spot up front with the striped lines on either side as to say “don’t park here.” And sure enough, someone parked right next to me. I still regret not having them towed.
A nice example of “get to” is that when I travel in Europe. I get a lot of benefits that are not a limitation in any way (so I don’t always feel justified in having this luxury, but justification is for after). In Greece and Italy, I get free entrance into nearly all museums and usually I skip any line as well (colosseum, etc.) Maybe it’s the country’s way of saying “sorry this actually sucks for wheelchairs, so have it for free so it feels less bad” (works for me).
Another example of “have to” is restrooms, kind of. If I have to shit, I can make it work with a small stall, but I’d rather not since the door usually won’t shut. Just imagine if there’s one stall that’s big enough for a wheelchair and the rest are built for someone the size of a breadbox, this is definitely a limitation.
And it’s not that I care greatly. In no way am I advocating for every parking spot to have extra space and every stall be big. That would be ridiculous. And I’m not even trying to send a message about only using handicap parking or big stalls if you truly need it.
I have a lot of pictures of people parking when they shouldn’t. Once I saw someone dropping off their kid at my gym, taking up 2 handicap spots – they parked that poorly!
The only point to make is that it can be an interesting thing to consider how many things are actually a limitation when on some surface level it seems like a privilege. But I haven’t yet encountered anything so bad that it’s killed me.
It helps to remember that even if I’m at a restaurant and it so happens all the stalls are taken and there’s no other option but to shit my pants so profusely you’d think we’re at a farm, I can’t just crawl under the table in agony and hope that by magic I wake up clean in my bed. The fact of that situation, like most others, is that no matter what I do, time continues to pass and, as much as I hate the situation, I’ll have to clean up and move on.
It’s hard to understand without being in such a situation, but it’s a profound realization in some ways – that I’m at point A and it’s inevitable that I must get myself to point B. No matter how much time I let pass, I must bring myself to point B (clean pants).
Or maybe I’m delusional because I lost half my body weight from a rhino dump and didn’t get to finish my dinner with some hot date (hopefully a farm girl).
Wheelchair DNA 