The Chair
Hi, Everyone,
So, as you know, I’m posting some free chapters from equally free PDF-Book, The Martha Chronicles (which you can download here: )
This is a few chapters on from where we left off last time. In it, I attempt to make wheelchairs funny.
That’s harder than you might think.
Anyway, here ’tis:
More of wheelchairs
My next Facebook post was on February 18 and was another attempt at humor. This time, I was talking a bit more about the difficulties of getting, much less using, a wheelchair. Here goes:
Okay, Everybody,
So this one is going to be yet another in my oh-so-helpful series of hints and tips for those of you who, like me, suddenly find yourself thrust into the role of caretaker. [Insert here sound of stirring, classical, hero-type music. Maybe Hector Berlioz’s Grande Symphonie Funèbre et Triomphale. Or maybe the theme from the Toxic Avenger. Whatever...]
Anyway, today, I thought I’d write about picking up your very first wheelchair. Until Martha had a fall, I’d never gotten a w’chair before. I knew you got them at medical supply stores and at some drugstores but beyond that, I was pretty clueless. Yeah, I know, being clueless is SOP for me, but more clueless than usual. Which is *really* saying something.
We had actually gotten a prescription for a chair from the (really nice) doctor Martha had had at the ER. If you get a prescription, you see, you may be able to convince your insurance company to compensate you for it. So, with that clutched tightly in my hot little hand, I headed off to a local pharmacy a few hours after Martha had her fall. There, the staff looked at me with utter disinterest, then vague amusement, and then, finally, the kind of gentle pity which one reserves for those suffering dementia, brain damage, or just pure stupidity. No, they did not carry wheelchairs. No, they didn’t know who did carry wheelchairs in the area. And, frankly, they could give a flying Futhark about my problem. And we’re talking Great Elder Futharks, here. Not just your ordinary stuff. So there, too.
I mumbled a few comments which were colorful and, I think, ripely evocative. I then nipped off to the Walgreens near us on Williams Ave., where they didn’t have wheelchairs either, but they were much nicer about it, and, better still, they helped me locate and buy the Rollator Walker that I’ve mentioned before. It’s proved an excellent investment, BTW. But more about that later.
Anyway, the next morning , I located a real medical supply store down off the highway. I showed up there and found myself in a small shop full of equipment, everything from exercise machines to hot water bottles. A very nice woman named Andrea then appeared and I explained my problem. “Of course,” she said, “now...what size wheelchair seat does your wife need?”
Ack...
Okay, first, I didn’t know that wheelchair seats came in sizes. I had this idea that they sort of magically expanded to fit any, uh, backside. Kind of like Dr. Who’s phone box but with a Brazilian Butt Lift as an option.
In fact...wheelchair seats come in all sorts of sizes. I gather from a quick search of the web that standard seat sizes include 16-, 18-, and 20-inch sizes, though there are both larger and smaller. Apparently there are children’s seats that are a mere 8-inches across, and seats for larger folks that are 30-inches or more.
There are a bunch of other measurements, too, that are also important--like leg-length and arm length. But, the seat seems to be the big deal.
It is in the word “big” that things get really, Really, REALLY messy.
Because...and here’s the second part of my problem...well, you do see what Andrea was asking me to do, don’t you? She was, that is, er...requesting me...to speculate in public...before a couple of other customers who had just come in to buy bedpans...
...on the actual size of my wife’s derrière.
Did you hear that sound? Sort of like a mighty wind. That was my life flashing before my eyes.
In the end, I simply phoned Martha and we...plus Andrea...had a strange but productive conversation and we soon established the right size for Martha’s seat.
What size that was I will not share.
This is because I want to survive.
My mama didn’t raise no foolish children. One ugly one, sure.
But no foolish ones.
*
Anyway, more to come…
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Copyright©2022 Michael Jay Tucker