If you were in a wheelchair... part 1

This entry is the first of a series of articles that will constitute a new column. It will be published every Friday and will deal - in a humorous way I hope – with all the little anecdotes that make up for the daily life of a person in a wheel chair.

1. When you run over someone else’s foot (unintentionally, of course) this person will apologize 99% of the time. The funniest being when it is completely my fault. The person gets rolled over his or her foot by more than 90 kilos (200 pounds) (yes, the chair is much heavier than what it looks like), suffers incredible pain and finds a way to apologize profusely.
2. As you are going downhill, the chair often dashes at top speed on its own. This proved to be quite dangerous once. I was going down a mountain road, near Voss in Norway , a road I had found very steep the day before as I was going up in taxi. The way down was vertiginous (well it was to me) and the speed I was going at quite out of the ordinary, and I realized at the last minute that there were logs over the road which went across the pavement (you know one of those things to stop the cattle). I had to slow down with my full hands, put my tendons through a lot of pain, in order to be able to stop just before this « wheel chair trap ». It was really close, and I think that if I hadn’t stopped at all I would have a broken jaw by now, to say the least.
3. When you want to go clubbing, the bouncer, through compassion or pity, often lets you in for free. I’m not complaining ! But the other side of the coin is when they don’t let you in at all. This becomes truly intolerable when the bouncer (this happened in Rotterdam ) tells you that you may go in at the sole condition to leave your wheel chair behind and to sort things out yourself with your legs. This is a true story that I can now relate with humour.

These are the first of long series of articles.

See you next Friday for some new adventures !