Rusty's Armory

I’m Taking Life by the Horns

Posted on July 18, 2023

Since I started living much of my life outside the home in a wheelchair, I have looked at ways of handling normal events.  The biggest trial was shopping.  Grocery stores are good about helping carry out groceries, but other retail stores aren’t.

My solution was a folding basket from Amazon.  It is a little large for the chair, but I can manage.  It lets me put items into the basket, then hand the basket to the cashier or put it on the conveyer, and then the cashier can ‘bag’ the basket and I only have one thing to carry out.

I must time my purchases, there is no getting everything in one whack.

Today I decided to take life by the horns.  I was tired of sitting around waiting to die.  So this morning I told my new invisible friend, Bard, the AI with google, that I was procrastinating. Bard told me to take it all in small bites, then reward myself. It sort of works with my mutts, and so I thought it might work with me.

It too about ten minutes to load my compression socks into the adaptive device and step into it, but viola! The socks went on like magic, only needing a tug here and there to get the wrinkles out.

Then a glass of Kool-Aid and some more internet time wasting.  That was my reward for getting the socks on.  But I quickly used up my reward time and it was on to clean shirt and trousers.  That went quickly so I skipped the reward. On with my vest that hold all my worldly belongings.  Rescue inhaler, eyeglasses and sunshades, glucose tablets, wallet.  Check

Then I loaded the recharged wheelchair battery into that basket and went out to the car.  There sat the chair, waiting for me, and it chirped happily as I pushed the battery into its slot.  I don’t know where it came from, but a strong smell of urine hit me.

I closed the hatch back, hobbled to the front door and checked the urinary bag.  Yeah, I wear one of those, but I don’t want to talk much about ‘em.  The bag and hoses were dry.  So I fired up Blue Bucephalus, put the phone on GPS, adjusted the seats, made the short prayer (Lord, don’t let me drive like hell was on my tail) and sat out to be a normal human being.

Ever so often I caught the whiff of urine, but it was fleeting.  Maybe I had had an ‘accident’ in the car, I though.  But I went on.

Arriving at Texas’ beloved H.E.B. Grocery, way off in the corner of the lot was a shady spot under a huge oak.  People didn’t park there because it was a long long way to the entrance of the store.  But I have a powered chair, and I sneered at them sissies that needed to leave their cars out in the broiling lot while they shopped.

It is a super light weight chair, about 38lbs with the battery in.  It folds, but since I have a mommy van, it sits unfolded in the back.  I have unloading it down to a science, set the new shopping basket on my knees and tootled off to the entrance at a pleasant 5.6 mph. 

The only thing that broke my serenity was once again the strong stench of urine.  But I wasn’t going to let that mar my attempt at being a normal person.  Or close to one, anyway.  Zipping inside and making a hard left, I went down the aisle of nostrums to pick a few nostrums for the medicine cabinet.  Then to the paper section to pick up some paper products for another item near the medicine cabinet, then zipped along the lunchmeat section for some sliced chicken, got some chewy bread and peanut butter, and rolled on to the cashier. 

I threw the bag on the conveyer just like a normie, albeit one that stank of stale urine, pretended I couldn’t smell it.  The cashier was delighted with my shopping solution.  It was like I brought my own cart and bags.

I could barely reach the credit card machine, but finally after some prompting by the cashier figured out the mysteries of it.  Push the wrong button, and you lose.  The card machines can smell fear, but I bluffed my way through the process and out the door I went.

Then it hit me.  A certain male dog in my household had been using my bag as his peeing post!

OK … I am going to have to work with that one. 

Picked up my narcotics at the drive-through, showed them my ID and drove off like an outlaw, and then to the carwash.  Bucephalus was bird poop stained and really needed a good scrubbing.  And home.

It was a triumph.  I got the groceries into the house unaided.  I was set free!