Life on wheels
Melanie Reid sees the black comedy of life on four wheels
Roll on, laughter
There’s something intrinsically funny about the sight of a human being in a wheelchair.
I’m sorry, but there just is. It’s all wrong. It’s that faint whiff of the circus, like those poor dogs, fitted with a trolley on the back end, who haul themselves around as canine rickshaws.
For such tragi-comic potential, I enjoy hospitals, especially outpatient departments. A bloke in a wheelchair jingles past, chained to a police officer on either side. Would he? Could he?
I remember the late John Callahan’s cartoon of the sheriff’s posse examining a wheelchair in the desert. ‘Don’t worry, he won’t get far on foot,’ says the lawman. But how can they be sure? That’s the ever-present joke. When someone’s in a wheelchair, you’re never certain what they’re capable of.
Magnificent cameos come and go: a large, healthy-looking woman in one of those throne-like NHS wheelchairs, hands folded over her handbag, exuding entitlement. She’s being towed backwards by a weary porter. To her, it’s a sedan chair; to him, it’s a wheelie bin.
Wheelchair-dependent for a decade after a riding accident, the loss of dignity is the most darkly amusing aspect. Homo sapiens’s ultimate pratfall – from striding tall around the land, arch-predator, most successful species ever, to becoming… well, a human wheelbarrow. Without legs, in an instant you’re stuffed. In tougher times, when your knees buckled, things were much simpler: you were supper for wolves and vultures.
Regretfully, that’s not an option today. Instead cheerful tyrants from occupational therapy fit you with castors and pitch you into a sadistic game show where you’re trussed in a metal cage, dwarf-high, with everything exquisitely out of reach.
Let me list some: light switches, wall plugs, door handles, cookers, taps, kettles, high cupboards, low
cupboards, bookshelves, shower nozzles, microwaves, the centre of the table, loo flushes, window catches, clothes hangers, coffee jars, and the top three sections of the fridge. Suddenly your furniture has doubled in bulk and there’s no access round the sides of anything.
To assist, you are given a grabber, a stick with a trigger on one end and a pincer on the other. Swiftly this becomes as important to you as your reading glasses; you will stash it in a hallowed place, and fly into an unfathomable rage if anyone moves it. The piteous wail ‘Where’s my grabber?’ really means ‘Which selfish bugger is trying to make my life even harder than it is already?’
As you creep around, grinding your fillings in frustration, you’ll find your chair deprives you, in no particular order, of physical contact; spontaneity; authority; a nice buffet (other people will fetch you food, they just never choose right); the ability to end an argument by flouncing out of the room; and, worst of all, any escape from bores.
Nope – trapped at fart height, at the mercy of the dangerously well-meaning, forever cast in supplication, you must develop an alternative strategy for power. Napoleon was pretty short and he managed it; you can, too.
First, communications are essential. A phone on a lanyard round your neck, with all your white knights on speed dial. Ditto an alarm button connected to a squawk box, so you can yell if you get stuck. Also a torch, glasses and house keys.
Next, hygiene. Get your bathroom user-friendly. It’s hard enough feeling remotely attractive in a wheelchair; no sense getting smelly. Basins are hard to get close to, you dribble toothpaste and food down your front, and by night-time your lap will resemble the kitchen floor – crumbs, festering bits of garlic, soup stains and probably a cockroach or two. Establish docking stations in every room. Here you cache your levers of power. TV remote controls. Crib sheet for finding Netflix. Tissues. Scissors. A pen. Itch cream. Winegums and a good book. A spare phone. Pills. Batteries. Bank cards. An ipad. The Times crossword. An article about online dating for the over 50s.
Be shameless. Cultivate a slave – they need never know what your last one died of. Shed a lifetime’s integrity and learn emotional manipulation. You’re crippled. You’re sore. You’re hungry. Your fridge is empty. Play on it well enough, and pretty soon you’ll be looking at a three-course meal, home baking, a week’s shopping and a lift to the pub.
In time, you may even acknowledge some minor advantages to a wheelchair. You always have a seat. People are generally nice to you. You can drink alcohol without showing the effects. You may even aspire to a catheter and leg bag, which mean you need never fret about being caught short either. Every flowerbed is a loo.
Finally, remember that you are cast in one of life’s blackest comedy roles. Your sense of humour is not disabled. You are a human ridiculously mounted on wheels. To this day, my mordant fantasy is to spring to my feet before an audience, give a little smile, and walk away.