Today there was a fire alarm at work. Our office is on the third floor of the building, and you know what that means. Yeah, I had to go down three flights of stairs in order to comply with that alarm. In my experience, we don't do drills. There is too much money that we'd lose if we did. So I was fairly certain this was for real, and for a moment I almost hesitated, thinking, "Fuck it. I'm not going down. I guess I'll burn."
To our VP's credit, he joked at first. "Who wanted a break so bad?" he asked. But when people weren't going fast enough to suit him, he said, "I'm the last one out. Let's go!"
I struggled down the steps and told people to go around me. I know my leg's bad. I didn't want to back everyone up. At the bottom my leg felt like it was on fire. I went out to my car to collapse in the passenger seat for a while. The firetrucks showed up, and after a while, it was determined that nothing happened. Except someone pulled the alarm lever. I used my cane to get back upstairs and spent some time hyperventilating in the kitchen, waiting to see if I might have a heart attack.
I swear, if it was some jackass just being a dick . . .
And if I get my foot cut off because of this . . .
But it could have been worse. What if someone in a wheelchair worked in the office with us? What would that person have done? If that was me, I'd be fucking psychotic right now.
It reminded me of something from a few years back. This was when I'd first injured the foot, and I figured that it would heal and I'd be able to get back to my life as usual (silly me). I had to get around on crutches. And this is one of the things my old pharmacy fucked up that CVS does well. The old pharmacy had a handicapped space, but they didn't have a dip in the curb. I was fresh from the hospital, on crutches for the first time since I was in fifth grade, learning to use them all over again. I thought it would be a breeze. Like riding a bike. But it was a lot harder than I thought.
So I managed to get up on the walk, and that was when I noticed for the first time there isn't that dip I just mentioned. I wondered what it would be like to be in a wheelchair and need to get in here. I hoped I never had to find out.
I had to wait for my meds. That was fine. They were just prescribed. So I found a chair and waited, and wouldn't you know it? A guy in a wheelchair went past me to the counter. He needed to wait for his meds, too, and he saw me in a similar predicament. We talked for a while, and I mentioned the lack of a dip in the curb, asking him how he'd gotten up it.
"There is a dip," he said. "It's just all the way down that way." Pointing down the way toward a cafe and a dentist (who is actually now my dentist). The point being, it was so far away from the handicapped space it was barely worth the point of putting it there.
Not enough people think of this shit. I remember when America started making places handicapped accessible, and people started telling jokes about it. Kind of like when we decided to make seat belts mandatory. The resistance to change is strong, even if that change has got nothing to do with that.
That's an awful way to live, which is why I groan every time I hear some dipshit complaining about so-called "woke culture," which doesn't really exist.
I'm stopping now because I promised myself no tangents tonight. Last night got out of control. Believe it or not, I actually cut a tangent from last night. It--nope. I'm stopping.
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