Transcripts

Transcript of Wheelchair Ettiquette:

Wheelchair Etiquette

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The Opinions Expressed in this Piece are the Author’s Own

and Do Not reflect the views of the Entire Disabled Population

for no matter what may be thought by the Current Fucking Tory Government

we are Not an Homogenised Mass to be Shat Upon

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Wheels are freedom.

A rite of passage,

a right to passage.

 

17. Provisional licence and a driving instructor who spent most lessons placing little magnetic cars on a map.
18. The man from the Red Cross dumps off a beast of a rusty monster – says “I’m sorry.”
19. The need is permanent and, God Bless the NHS, I have lightweight folding wheels

 

and a steep learning curve, because people can be dicks.

 

I am not wheelchair bound.

I am wheelchair transported, wheelchair free

to museums, gigs and galleries

 

or I would be, if people weren’t dicks.

 

Yeah we’ve got an accessible toilet, just over there!

I mean it’s full of all our cleaning products, Lenny’s drumkit and all the booze we couldn’t fit behind the bar, but I’m sure you’ll manage.

Yeah, we’ve got an accessible toilet, just up the stairs!

No of course we don’t have a fucking lift! What do you think we are? Minted?

Yeah, we’ve got an accessible toilet, just over there!

I mean it’s out of order at the moment and no we can’t stop the train, it’s not a human right, just piss yourself.

 

See, still with legalities on my side, people can be dicks.

 

Fed up of living life via tv my dad and me

we go the football and we pay a FORTUNE for accessible parking on top of the ticket price

which entitles him and I to sit one behind the other

He’s called my carer – I’m not entitled to a father, a friend or a lover.

I will sit next to strangers and fat men will dangle over the barrier in front of me

and my view of a goal

will be the arsehole’s arseholes

as their bum cracks jive in celebratory writhing

 

see, accessibility doesn’t work without thought and care, and if people are dicks

 

I park my car,

because wheelchair users are allowed to drive you know,

in a space where there are hashed lines for extra room, but just down one side,

because wheelchair users aren’t allowed a wheelchair using friend you know.

That’s if I get a space at all because it’s raining

and that row there means three seconds more from here to the door of that shop over there with steps up to it,

so I’ll just park in that blue badge space because I want to keep my hair nice.

And if she dares to holler and get angry at my laziness

I’ll call her a fucking ugly crippled cunt.

 

See, people can be dicks.

 

And Marks and Spencers, Claire’s Accessories and Glenwoods Paints

it’s all very well and good

having aisles legally wide enough for me to traverse to spend my purple pound on your goods

but then, if you fill them with discount racks and piles of the tat you want to rid yourself of

then you also rid yourself of

me

and my cash

and when I get outside the shop and find a pair of pants and a bra dangling on the back of my wheels

because I had to make it through a jungle of sale underwear

Then I will take them home and wear them with stolen pride

 

see, there are rules there that are just

made to be broken, when people are dicks.

 

And, talking of underwear, let’s get to sex. I know you’re dying to ask.

Hello, complete stranger, who I have never met before, but deems it highly appropriate to dive straight in without any foreplay –

Yes, I have sex.

Fucking good sex.

It’s fucking amazing.

Now please,

fuck off.

And no,

you can’t have a go, nor sit on my knee and take a photo

 

see, people can be dicks.

 

And excessive kindness without thinking first, well sometimes that’s the worst

Because it’s just taken me so many spoons

and fighting through elbows to forehead and bums in my face

and I just get to where I want to be and the

‘Can I help you?’ doesn’t come,

but there are hands on my handles and I’m being pushed back to where I started from.

And they smile and leave in a haze of smug pride

and I need gin

from the bar that’s so high that I can’t be seen.

 

Please; offer, ask! Just don’t be a dick.

 

And when I smile at the child at my eye level and she smiles shyly back and whispers to me;

“Why are you sitting down?”

and I think this is a beautiful learning opportunity

and the father swoops in and plucks her by her elbow and drags her away yelling

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Then that shh makes me small, and sad.

Makes me the half size that the sitting hadn’t.

Makes me less, makes me monstrous.

Shh makes strong invincible me’s bottom lip begin to tremble and I want to go home.

 

Because uneducated, embarrassed people can be dicks.

 

I am not wheelchair bound.

I am wheelchair transported, wheelchair free

To museums, gigs and galleries

 

where the bouncers say; sorry about the steps love, can we give you a hand?

And they’ve asked

and I say yes

and they transport me upon burly arms,

laughing, joking with me,

treating me like the woman I am

with as much respect and dignity as the shitty situation can muster

and they place me down next to a table with my mates;

any issues pet, you just call me.

 

And that’s what I choose to hold on to.

Amongst the inequality, the austerity, the indignity

is the quiet kindness and solidarity,

that’s when I feel free.

 

Transcript of Don’t Make a Fuss:

Don’t Make A Fuss

 

I walk past the Turkish delight,

from sink to hallway

it sits on the table and calls to me.

I’m not very good at refusing the song of empty calories.

If I pick wisely and stack the pack back in jenga fashion

no one need know about the

extra stolen inch on my hips.

Shhhh.

It touches my lips and gives me no warning.

No bee sting to make me drop

so I chew and there is no flavour

just an unfamiliar

Crunch

which as I chomp and saliva carries those

lumpy bits down throat to tummy

a warning sounds a clarion call across the decades,

from a dungareed me

who’s too small to see the mirror above the sink.

And that unfamiliar crunch is in a toffee which swirled invitingly

I plucked it.

I crunched it.

My fault,

don’t make a fuss,

chew and chew and spit

and bathroom and toilet and shit and…

 

Maybe I’ll be okay?

I’ll phone my dad, because he’s the one who’ll make me safe,

though I have my own home, a husband and

wrinkles around my eyes,

Dad will rescue me, he always does.

Answerphone.

 

Epi-pen. Do I use it now?

Fuuuuuuuck.

Don’t want to use it and make a fuss.

I’ll be fine. It’s nothing.

 

Vibrating ears shaking,

Throat is cotton wool,

Soggy, the edges are mouldy,

My breath is edgy and my heart is poundy.

My.

Breath.

Is.

Ed.

Gy.

 

Husband’s at work, don’t want to interrupt

but my eyes, they’re not mine and through the blur I dial

and apologise

“Sorry to interrupt, I don’t want to make a fuss, but

I think I might be dying.”

 

Queueing in A&E, he drags me to the front

“It’s not my turn yet,”

I am mortified by the stares and the tuts,

don’t make a fuss!

The old man behind the desk can’t hear above my wheeze.

Husband explains,

trolleys and speed

adrenaline stabbed in my arse and the

little hidden room with all the beepy machines

where they put the people

who may die.

 

“Why did you not use your epi-pen?” says the nurse

“Why did you wait so long?

Why didn’t you call an ambulance?

Why did you fucking queue?”

 

“Because I don’t like to make a fuss.”

 

Side note.

They keep you in until your heart rate is stable for more than an hour.

Just in case you relapse.

Just in case the adrenaline wears off and you try to die again.

Just in case you don’t want to make a fuss

they rig you up to all manner of instruments that

make the fuss for you.

I am a feminist. I respect the brain not the body.

But those instruments don’t lie and I stay there an extra 4 hours until the hot doctor finishes his shift and my heart rate is stable once more.