Rolling Along

I'm still limping around from the stray needle hitting a nerve a few months ago. I'm getting better, but it is a slow process. Last week I was in Little Rock with my sister, and I was in a wheelchair.

As we navigated around the crowded aisles, I was reminded again that so many places that say they are handicapped accessible aren't. The stores were packed, not with people, but with stuff in the middle of the aisles. It made getting the wheelchair down a straight path impossible. The regular aisles were so narrow that often times my wheelchair wouldn't fit. Quite a few stores lost business because I couldn't get to the product I wanted to buy.

When I'm in Minnesota, just about the entire city, and definitely the downtown area near the clinic is set up for people with any type of disability. You almost feel different if something is not physically wrong with you. Most of the time that I spend in a wheelchair is up there, in a city accustomed to dealing with people that have different needs routinely.

By the time I come home again, I am better and over whatever procedure put me in the wheelchair (usually) so I don't have to be in one down here that often. Having to use it this weekend, on a busy crowded holiday shopping weekend, reminded me of how difficult it is for people who don't have the advantage of being able to get up and walk away from their wheelchair.

The truth is many, many places that say they are accessible are not. I can't tell you how many checkout counters I couldn't reach, how many times I couldn't see the amount I had paid, I couldn't swipe my debit card, all because the counter was too high for the wheelchair. There were stores I couldn't go in and areas in the stores I couldn't get to. That is in all of those malls that have ramps and signs telling you how accessible they are. They aren't.

I think every store owner should have to spend a day in a wheelchair, trying to navigate his store. Perhaps then, stores would truly be handicapped accessible.