What’s up with this picture? You see a wheelchair, a bedroom door, the seam between a carpet and Coretec/vinyl floor planks, a laundry basket, a washing machine, some jugs of laundry soap. The large jug is open, and the lid is sitting next to it. What could possibly go wrong?

My wife Tonnette was sitting in her wheelchair, loading clothes into the washing machine. Even though I survived over 20 years living as a bachelor, Tonnette gets testy when I try to wash my own clothes.

She closed the door on the washer, and pulled out the soap tray, held a measurement cup in one semi-contracted hand, and tipped the large laundry soap jug over it. Why didn’t she use the push-button dispenser? Who knows?

Tonnette lost control of the measuring cup, then the jug. It fell onto her lap, and then to the floor. Then she called for help. I hurried to see what the trouble was, hoping it was something fun.

No, she had liquid laundry soap soaking into her lap. It was also on the wheelchair, and spilled onto the floor. The jug was sitting on the floor, missing a lid, and the soap had begun seeping into the bedroom carpet. The wheelchair was blocked-in by the jug, the laundry basket, and the washing machine.

What to do?

I reached over my wife, grabbed the jug, and placed it on the washing machine. I moved the wheelchair to a spot where Tonnette could roll into the bathroom. She rolled out of the soap puddle, into the bathroom, and began taking off her soapy clothes. She would need another shower.

I threw several towels onto the floor, to mop up the soap. I asked Tonnette to transfer to the toilet, and I tipped the wheelchair into the bathtub. I wanted to get the soap washed off the wheelchair; it was due for a cleaning anyway. That’s when the situation got really dramatic.

Tonnette was yelling at me to get her seat cushion out, because she didn’t want it to get wet. I wanted to rinse everything off, including the cushion. We didn’t have a meeting of the minds on this.

Washing liquid soap completely away is not accomplished in a minute. Making the best of a bad situation is not easy with an irate wife yelling at you. Don’t argue with a woman about her wheelchair. Any free advice you get is worth about what you paid for it.

While my wife showered, I threw the extra laundry into the washing machine, got our carpet cleaner machine prepped, and began extracting soap from the bedroom carpet.

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When Tonnette began attending Boise State University, she had her share of challenges. She remembers trying to get vocational rehabilitation benefits to pay for tuition, but ultimately it was her father who paid.

To overcome spasticity in her legs, her physiatrist injected phenol into her soleus muscles. The effect is similar to Botox injections; it causes temporary paralysis in the targeted muscles. This allowed her to walk with an assistive walking device.

Her father installed a mini winch or crane in the trunk of her car, so she could hoist her electric scooter out. That scooter enabled her to get to classes. She remembers praying hard that it wouldn’t snow on school days, as the scooter was not meant for driving on ice. Tonnette also dreaded having to drive her car on icy roads.

As she had contracted hands, it wasn’t feasible to take handwritten notes during classes. She couldn’t write fast enough. A school counselor arranged for her to share notes written by classmates.

It took her 9 years to earn her bachelor’s degree.

After Tonnette created her profile with an online dating service, it was hard to keep a positive outlook. Hundreds of computer-matched men dropped her like a hot potato. That’s not a surprise. People who can easily walk on their own feet don’t want to spend much time with people who can’t. You might say that’s cruel, or selfish, or unfair. Life isn’t fair; life is foremost about self-preservation. That’s the natural man.

Why did my wife keep attending the university for 9 years? Why did she continue messaging me for 7 years while ordinary women had given up and un-liked me? She kept her focus on the prize. Tonnette was no ordinary woman. There is something redeeming about exercising patience.

Something else I have learned from my wife, is that none of us can excel in this life by being a Lone Ranger, no matter how noble the intentions. Everyone does or will get into situations where they need help getting out.

When we drive somewhere together with our handicap license plate, it’s a blessing to have a reserved spot near the entrance of the business. Tonnette can get where she needs to go without trying to drive across the parking lot on her mobility scooter.

Sometimes, handicapped people get no respect. At my first apartment with Tonnette, we had no reserved parking, unless we paid extra for it. The handicapped spots and ramps were not near our apartment, and other residents parked in front of the ramps. No respect. Handicapped people rely on ramps to get past curbs.

When a non-handicapped person takes the parking spot we should have had, I sometimes go online and report the vehicle to the county parking enforcement. When an officer sees the complaint, he might rush right over and investigate. Or not. Maybe there’s a life threatening situation that’s more important to deal with. Most often, the vehicle in parking violation leaves in about an hour, before any enforcement shows up.

Someone on Reddit posted this photo under the heading, “How to take up four handicap parking spots at the same time!”

This may seem like an over-the-top illustration of a not-a-big-deal, but it IS a big deal. If my wife had parked in that spot next to the Corvette, and gone shopping before the Corvette arrived, she couldn’t get back into her car with her walker, wheelchair, or mobility scooter.

There are drivers like the one who parked that Corvette, who can spout off all sorts of amusing excuses:

* I’m only going to be a few minutes. * I’m just waiting for a friend. * The cops here don’t care. * There’s other parking places for cripples. * This lot is private property, and I know the owner. * I donate to charity. * I forgot my hang-tag. * You don’t really need to park here, but I do. * Who the H3££ are you to tell me where to park?! * I receive medical disability. *

None of that makes any sense to a disabled person when they are denied access.

Some people are Putin-esque narcissists. They don’t have to make any sense. They don’t really care whose land they trash, who they take advantage of, or whose day they ruin. Why should they? Nobody of any consequence dares to stand up to them. Nothing that a peon like myself might say will change them. Most of the time, I try to steer clear of them. Life is too short to entertain narcissists.

When we were visiting the Oregon coast, I learned that most beaches do not have many parking spots. At one of those beaches, someone parked their non-handicap vehicle in the only handicap parking spot. I had to park on the other side of the unpaved lot. With my little boy holding my hand tightly, pulling me toward the ocean, I took a closer look at the intruder’s vehicle.

I inquired of a woman who exited the vehicle, “Is there anyone in this car who is actually handicapped?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I have a medical condition.”

Without stopping, she walked, unassisted, down to the beach, to join her family. She was carrying a bag which might have had a nebulizer inside, or diabetic supplies, or it could have been a really fancy camera. Don’t know, don’t care, it don’t matter. What does matter to me is that my wife had to sit alone in our car, on vacation, unable to see what her husband and son were doing on that beach. Fortunately, there were other beaches to try.

Some clarification here. If it isn’t obvious, my wife cannot safely walk onto the beach with her walker. She cannot roll onto the beach with her wheelchair. She cannot drive onto the beach with her mobility scooter. Having a parking spot close to the beach, in sight of it, would make a world of difference to her.

Elevators are really important to my wife. She waited for this porch lift to arrive, and get into service, before she felt safe living in our house.

This device works pretty well, if the weather is fair, and if the roller bearings and driving screw are lubed. When we have a bad winter, it complains.

We visited Las Vegas last year, and encountered some interesting challenges. I do NOT recommend Vegas to anyone with a locomotion handicap. There was no more free parking at any hotel parking garage. No easy way to return to the casino pick-up and drop-off point, once you’ve parked your car in the hotel garage. We could not carry our own baggage to the hotel room; we’re expected to hand it off to a bellman. We could not store our own drinks in the hotel room fridge. We could no more walk across Las Vegas Boulevard at ground level. There are cement barriers along every corner to keep pedestrians off the street. It is possible to cross over on the pedestrian bridges, if you can climb the right stairway, ride the right escalator, or find a working elevator.

Easy peas, some would say. Just go under that electric billboard, swing right by the crack smokers, and climb those stairs. Can’t do stairs? Okay, there’s an elevator to the pedestrian bridge in this casino. Go that way, around the big shrub planter, and go through the casino doors on the left. Look for the elevator on the right. Go to the upper level. There’s only two levels, up or down. When you come out of the casino on the upper level, look for the signs. Don’t go inside the tram station, go to the bridge. When you get to that bridge, you might wanna put your phone out of sight, and watch out for people in costumes. Like those showgirls. They like to schmooze people. How can I put this delicately? They get your attention by jiggling their boobies in your face. Some of them aren’t wearing tops. They offer to take a picture with you, and they expect you to pay them a tip for it. It’s not a few bucks, either. Fifty.

Ask a hotel employee how to get to the theatre where you have tickets, he’ll likely tell you to hire a taxi. Every big hotel has a taxi kiosk, or Uber kiosk. Your average taxi might have space for a wheelchair, or a mobility scooter. If not, you’ll have to wait for dispatch to send a larger vehicle. You want to walk ?? Why ?? It’s really tricky to navigate a mere mile along Las Vegas Boulevard, around the terraced sidewalks, through the stinky casinos, along subterranean food courts, up the ramps and escalators to trams or monorail stations (always on the second level), through the hotel lobbies, getting on the right elevators…

Want to ride your mobility scooter along the strip ?? Why ?? If you want some adventure, take a train, or maybe an Uber, or a Lyft. Even if you know where you’re going, you might run out of juice (battery power). We didn’t see any charging stations for scooters or cell phones, until we got to the Miracle Mile. There were plug-ins there in days gone by, but now the empty outlet boxes are covered with metal plates. No respect.

There is a company renting mobility scooters in Vegas, but even they have battery limitations. One of their elderly customers was charging her scooter from another rental scooter.

One morning we got stuck, waiting in front of an elevator that was out of service. We needed that elevator to get to the tram station. We notified a hotel employee, who promptly called engineering. She relayed their response: “They said it should be working.”

Some people don’t understand the difference between 1- should be working and 2- It’s not working.

We opened the emergency squawk box inside the elevator, and asked the responding voice to send someone to fix the elevator. We got tired of waiting.

Most grocery stores in Boise offer electric scooters for handicapped shoppers. Oh yeah. Maybe they work, sometimes. After my wife dismounts a store scooter, I will usually return it to the store, and plug it in so the battery can recharge. Sometimes another shopper will ask for it straightaway.

Walmart has done something interesting with their electric scooters. They are programmed to stop if you leave the building. So when we entered the seasonal & garden area, the scooter stopped, temporarily, with a nasty message telling us to return the scooter to the store. I switched it off, then on, several times, to get the scooter slowly back into the real part of Walmart. When we complained to an employee, he validated our concern, saying “Yeah, we all hate those things, but there’s nothing we can do.”

We like shopping at Fred Meyer, partly because they have electric scooters available inside the mezzanine near the entrances. One day, my wife and I exited the middle doors, and drove a scooter down the sidewalk toward the far end of the building, where our car was parked. An employee followed us, making us feel like suspected scooter thieves. He said nothing until my wife got into our car, then he said, “I’ll take it.” He sat on the scooter, and drove it back into the store.

I later learned that keeping those store scooters operational is quite a challenge. On another shopping trip to Fred Meyer, we found four scooters in the mezzanine, none of them working, none of them plugged in to recharge. I moved them close to the wall, and plugged them in. Then I returned to our car and assembled our portable Pride Mobility scooter. I’m not complaining… at least I know our battery is fully charged. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to expire on the crafts aisle.