Home / Thoughts / Other's Thoughts / Lane's Thoughts / Let them Eat… Well… Cake
Let them Eat… Well… Cake
Written by Lane on Monday, September 21, 2009
I knew that the most enjoyable part of this post was going to be coming up with an appropriate title. There were so many options. After that, the rest would filled with a series of sad and unfortunate events. Read on to see why.
Over the past few months, it felt like the world has been my oyster. I managed to get a new chair, I’m now wheeling full-time at work and in about 50% of my other public life. Now that my chair is not only the utility of medical desperation, it has freed me from physical pain and other complications well beyond my expectations. Even after hearing of others’ successes, I was still surprised by how much it calmed by soul to be wheeling such as large proportion of the time.
So far, this is sounding like a celebration, but every every silver lining has a cloud. My new-found joy could not be contained. I was noticeably happier at work, coworkers commented, my psychiatrist commented immediately. People insisted that I’d also lost weight – that sort of thing. I enjoyed telling fun stories on TA about silly people doing silly things and about the tiny discoveries and subtle pleasures of wheeling for extended stretches.
But that was all before … the incident. You see, I had done the rehab thing years ago, I’ve had a chair for more than a decade and now I had a fantastic new machine. I felt that I paid my dues and now earned the hardware that would make me pretty much invincible. My wheeling gestures were fast, but controlled and most people had become adjusted to my new stature and image.
What changed all that? Cauliflower soup. For those who aren’t aware, it actually flies pretty well, when placed on the edge of a cafeteria tray. All it takes is a momentary error in judgment. If you bobble things, do you drop your wallet or the tray? Choose right and you have to stop briefly. Choose wrong and you’ll be wheeling frantically back and forth between the napkin dispensers and the scene of the crime trying to make it all go away. The jeers of your peers won’t help – believe me. I was partially saved by the head cook, who graciously said nothing, grabbed a mop and made the immediate problem go away, but it certainly took me down several notches. I learned that all it takes is a little soup to remove people’s veil of politeness regarding one’s limitations.
So, I wanted to quit my job and start a new life in another state, but after an hour or so and some lovely benzodiazepines, I had my wits about me and continued on with life. This time promising myself to be mindful of my priorities when carrying things.
These past few months have been really, really tough at work – due to the market forces that I think we are all feeling. The one nice break from the madness is the very strong culture of celebrations for birthdays at my workplace. On your day, you’re expected to bring some sort of treat and everyone makes an effort to visit and give you good wishes. It’s simple, but it’s actually one of the cooler, more personal things that I like about this job – we all support each other – as individuals.
Recently, it was my turn to bring in treats. The bar is usually set pretty high for me because I’m known for bringing in the good stuff – I do not disappoint. This time I brought a selection of homemade traditional English and French pastries, plus some nice cupcakes. I now have contact with lots of people in the company, so I made 60 of each. The three people who sit directly next to me each took something and three people I’ve never met came by for the food. Sadly, not a single other person made an appearance. I don’t know why the tradition had been violated, but that’s for another time. Maybe the chair has changed the dynamic in some way that I’m not yet clued into. I did’t think anything else had changed.
Anyway, I now have an enormous amount of pastries that were going to go unused, so I made a run to my old pals in one particular area. We started a nice chat and I offered some of the cupcakes – all neatly arranged on a platter. There were still no takers, but it was agreed that they might be better placed on a table by the wall. I rolled back to place them there. The story would have ended there if it weren’t for the tiny box next to someone’s cubicle – just outside my peripheral vision. Upon hitting it, my chair was immediately, set in unexpected motion.
I’m sure that I had another decision to make, just like the soup incident. Save the cupcakes, or the chair? In the end, I chose the cakes (duh) and lost absolutely everything. My chair was overturned – seemingly instantaneously. The cupcakes promptly took flight as I thrust the platter up – trying to catch my own balance. I hit my head on the concrete floor, then a hail of cupcakes trashed my shirt, my cushion and everything in the immediate area.
What’s worse, bystanders told me that it was incredibly loud. This I can easily believe because a great crowd gathered. Finally, I had some recognition, but it was most certainly not the type I was interested in. When I say that I wanted to crawl in a hole and die, I mean it. I DID NOT know what to do. Maybe it was the bump on the head, or maybe it was the extreme embarrassment, but I was nauseous and stunned.
Eventually, someone brought some towels and I scooted around – not moving my legs (for some reason not even known to me) – and cleaned up most of the collateral damage scattered about. With a bit of water, the chair was then back to normal, but there’s just no hiding the impact of 20 cupcakes on your shirt.
Still unsure of what to do, and considering the option of waiting until everyone just left for the day (it was hours before the end of business), I decided to make a mediocre para-esque transfer into the chair and try to sneak into the darkest possible corner of the building.
On the way there, one old friend kept asking if I was OK. I said that I didn’t know. I told him that I didn’t want to let it bother me and that I wanted to try to get back on the horse. I tried to do some basic wheelies to prove to myself that I still had some semblance of balance, but my heart was still racing too much to make them last for more than 5 or 10 feet. I chalked my first fall several weeks prior to learning my new CG, but this was just bad judgment and poor balance control. This was tougher to shake off.
As soon as I could, I logged out, grabbed my keys and went home. I have been fairly freaked out since. Though my basic maneuvering is solid and ever-improving, I am still in the process of building back confidence. Those events – and especially the second have really shaken me. I think this will put on pause my Joy of Wheeling posts for a while. Still, I’d rather be wheeling than doing just about anything else.
Tags: cake, fear, soup, Wheelchair
This entry appears in Lane's Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
12 Comments
2 On 21 September, 2009, Lane said:
Slapstick! Darn it. I knew I went into the wrong career.
I think part of what made the second incident so powerful for me was the fact that absolutely no one laughed, despite the fact that it was probably insanely funny to watch. This is a VERY fun-loving group, but no one dared by inappropriate. This is my take, anyway. I’m pretty sure that if someone would have so much as chuckled, I would have laughed it off and my day would have ended on a high note.
Maybe I need to make _this_ my new birthday tradition ;). Next year maybe cream tartlets, gumballs, something with Jello??? Haha
Is it any comfort to say everyone makes these errors? In some way or another, we all do. The -pam drugs are good, but finding the right antidepressant is even better. Be of good hope.
I know there’ll come a day when I’ll land flat on my face while crutching. It’s not going to be pretty, but it will happen someday.
The one time I fell out of my chair in public in a very undignified manner I thought it was so hilarious I couldn’t stop laughing. Everyone else started laughing too. Maybe that’s the protocol. You have to be the first to laugh.
5 On 21 September, 2009, Sean said:
I *well* remember a couple incidents. The first one, I was out dancing at a club with my late wife and a couple friends. So, there was my wife (a para), friend 1 (a quad in a manual chair), friend 2 (a para), and myself. Somehow, my late wife managed to flip backwards, and land on her back. The three other wheelers just cracked up laughing, and the crowd ghasped, horrified. Louise just sat up and kept dancing, ass on the dance floor, laughing herself silly. The other time, it was ME that flipped back on the dance floor. This time I had been cocky, dancing while popping wheelies. Didn’t see that someone had spilled a drink on the floor, I lost traction and WHAM! My partner just laughed while people around were quite shocked. They were saying she was heartless. Years later, we bumped into someone that was at that party and who still thought it had been heartless, whereas I was just laughing :)
It *is* better to laugh at those things. People tend to take your lead when you do.
6 On 21 September, 2009, Phil said:
Hi Lane
Why these bitter feelings of failure?
I have two legs. Do you think I never stumble? Do you think I never let fall things? I also get into embarrassing situations.
Do you think that in a wheelchair you have to be even more perfect than without it? Why?
I am contemplating about the “right” reaction AB persons should have in front of people with disabilities. AB are often so insecure - so am I…
I’m very good at trying to ignore other’s disabilities, not refer to them neither ask questions. There was a disabled woman in a wheelchair I once talked to who said this is the most polite way and you never have the right to ask questions.
But what’s the appropriate reaction? My experience watching AB/PWD encounters is that when the AB persons try to be funny, the situation turns awful. Thus I invented the “cbpi” award - for comments that are “creative but politically incorrect”.
@all: What reaction would you have wished for in such a situation that Lane/Sean told?
For me, if the cake incident happened to me then I hope I’d laugh first and break the ice for others to laugh with me. If that didn’t happen then I think I’d like someone to laugh or comment on how high I’d managed to fling the cakes or pick out something amusing about the situation.
If that wasn’t possible then perhaps the person who left the thing on the floor that caused the incident could have apologised. Or someone else could have commented that it was stupid of someone to leave that there - that way they take the blame away from me.
When I’m in my chair I don’t mind people asking about why I’m in it, though not as the first thing they say to me. After we’ve been chatting for a while (1/2 an hour perhaps) or after a few days of regular brief chats, or if it’s relevant - i.e. if they need to know if I can get myself up a couple of steps to a meeting or they need to change venue. I agree that initially it’s most polite to ‘ignore’ the disability if you can.
Well, seeing as how my sense of humor is very well trained to slapstick comedy, I probably would have laughed, at least when the cupcakes all came splattering down.
Well, the problem is (as regards my experience) that when others try to be funny, they’re actually insulting. It’s hard to feel incomfortable or insecure because of someone else’s disability and then quickly find a good, appropriate, funny comment. And you don’t know if the disabled person matches your sense of humour.
12 On 24 September, 2009, Phil said:
What I see is that one tries to avoid to express one’s REAL feelings. This can be necessary, but it certainly is not healthy and authentic.
Why not simply show how you really feel - on both sides?
Without planning for such a situation, but spontaneously, only this is authentic.
Post your comments
© transabled.org - 1994-2010 - All Rights Reserved.
1 On 21 September, 2009, Chloe said:
Thanks for explaining about the cauliflower soup. I knew there was a reason I was avoiding it at the cafeteria, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I always get the pea soup. So far so good; it seems much safer.
It’s very interesting for me to see the little details of shared experience. I had no idea how much the wheelchair would reduce my levels of physical pain. I was expecting it to be the other way round. Likewise I also was surprised by the magnitude of the beneficial psychological effect going from wheeling some of the time to wheeling most of the time.
You are obviously a natural at slapstick comedy. Will you star as yourself in the movie?
I bump into things if get distracted, but you clearly have more sophisticated talents.