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Home / Stories / Personal Histories / Sean's Story / A trip to the cafeteria

A trip to the cafeteria

Written by Sean on Saturday, August 11, 2007

Someone was telling me they’d like to hear more about some of my day to day "adventures". I don’t really see my every day life as such an adventure, it’s pretty boring stuff, really. But there you have it, I understand that it might be of some interest, somehow. So here is a brief story about a nearly daily trip to the workplace cafeteria.

I work in a large organisation that has several buildings over a large area. Every day, weather permitting, I take a “walk” to the cafeteria to purchase a sandwich. This walk involves going to a building approximately 500m away from my office. I could, of course, bring my own lunch and save myself $15/week, but it is a good excuse to get some fresh air and get exercise.

I am a man of habit and routines, and tend to go to lunch at the same time everyday. I have learned to time it just right. If I leave my desk at 11:40am, I get to the cafeteria at about 11:50am. If I show up before that, they haven’t laid out the sandwiches yet. If I show up much later than that, there is a huge queue of people waiting to be served, and service is rather slow.

For a good part of the way, there are no sidewalk, and I am forced to travel in the street. I leave the building by the main entrance. There is an automatic door opener, which is rather helpful. I take a light turn left right outside the door and get in the small parking space. There is no kerb cut if I just go on the sidewalk, hence, the trip through the 5-car parking lot. I jump down the small kerb, and end up in the street, going downhill. It isn’t a steep hill, but it is enough to get me going with gravity only.

I wheel down, feeling the pavement. Ashphalt here is laid by pouring bitumen, then spreading gravel on top. It is not smoothed out as it is in America. It makes for a very bumpy right in a wheelchair. I am glad I have Frogs Legs on my chair to cut the vibrations. Towards the bottom of the hill, I need to turn right and across another road. I have to be careful that cars don’t follow me.

For some reasons, some drivers think it’s better to slow right down, and trail me at what must be snail’s pace for them, rather than overtake me. I dislike it when they do that. It makes me paranoid, and I feel unsafe. Pass me, don’t follow me. So checking behind me to make sure there’s no car, I cross the street from one side to the other, then I cross the intersecting street. I get on the sidewalk for a little bit, and back in the street as I turn left around a building. This street doesn’t have high traffic, and in fact has been closed for the last few months due to construction.

They dug a portion of the road up, but filled it back with soil and rocks. There is still a strip of ashphalt about 1.5m wide, so I can wheel down that comfortably.

Unless they have a crane using that area, at which point I have to detour through a building. I sometimes go through the long building if it’s raining, staying a bit dry. All this time is still going somewhat downhill, an easy push.

I pass next to the bus depot, and continue between two ugly buildings, remnants of some weird architectural experiment from the 70’s. I then have to tackle a ramp, often blocked by a gaggle of smokers. Right after the ramp, there’s a small parking area. I look to see if anyone has parked illegally in the disability parking space. If there’s someone parked there, half the time, they don’t display a permit.

I tackle the next ramp, a long L shaped affair. There’s a tree overhead and often branchlets and leaves clutter the ramp. At the bottom of the ramp, I face a wide open space, full of terrazo tiles. Once again, i’m glad I have frogs legs, the vibration of these tiles is murder on the legs and lowerback otherwise. Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack my wheels go.

I approach the doors to the cafeteria cautiously. It’s a set of double doors, and each pane is *just* wide enough for my chair, leaving me about an inch on each side. If I’m not careful, I scrape either my hand rims or my knuckles.

I get in line, hoping to catch a glimpse of what’s there. I usualy like the egg salad sandwhich, or the ham, cheese and tomato ones. The rest tends to be ucky.

The display cabinet for the sandwhiches has glass sliding doors. They are usualy very hard to open. Some people who walk and stand have a hard time opening it, me, from the chair, it’s murder. But the cafeteria staff has gotten better at keeping the sliders clean and dirt free so it’s easier to open.

The EFTPOS machine is on the counter, mounted in a fixed position, and there are rails for food trays in front of it. it’s a bit of a stretch, and I can’t shield the number pad as I would prefer if I’m to enter my PIN.

Once I have my sandwhich, I prepare for the trip back. It was all downhill to come from the office to here, which means it’s all going to be uphill to get back to work. I’ll work both a sweat and an appetite!

Tags: Wheelchair, Ramp, Kerb