This is not Nam, Dude, There are rules.

The following is part of the conversation I had today with the random stranger I asked to help me pump gas. Actually, I didn't ask him to help me pump gas, I asked him to ask the clerk inside the gas station to come out and help me, but this guy volunteered instead.

Picture: middle-aged guy; beer gut; dirty jeans and sweatshirt; sunglasses; scraggily blonde hair jutting out underneath a shitty Oakland Raiders ball cap; two days of white beard stubble.

My side of the conversation consisted mostly of "Yeah?" "Really?" "Wow." "Crazy." etc.

Him: Yeah man, my buddy came back from 'Nam. Couldn't walk. Had this Charger. He and another guy - had a Torino I think - He got into all sorts of shit with that thing. Tearing all over the place...and this was back in like '74,'75 when cars really kicked ass. Cops chasing after him.

Me: It had hand controls?

Him: Yeah man, not like this (referring to my van). It was silver, I think. The other guy had a Torino. But my buddy, he got Agent Orange and died a couple years later.

Him: I can't believe I'm 50, man. I can still ride a bike 10 miles without stopping. But I hurt all over, man. I never thought I lived to be 50. We used to do all kinds of drugs and shit...acid, orange acid, pot, mescaline...I still smoke pot. Yeah man, I've been smoking weed everyday since I was 13. Yeah, the only time I stopped smoking pot was when I was in jail. Yeah man, I got arrested and was in jail for four months. Couldn't get any pot.

Me: Imagine that.

Sorry Kevin, I Didn't Mean To Corrupt Your Worldview

The Incriminating Evidence

When I go grocery shopping I get one of those handheld baskets and put it on my lap as I wheel around the store collecting my needed wares. My food preparation abilities dictate that most of the groceries I buy come in ready-to-eat, ready-to-microwave containers, easily stackable boxes and the like. When I'm not buying items such as milk or orange juice that have a considerable amount bulk, I can pick up quite a few items—enough to fill my refrigerator for a few days—and still manage to get the groceries back to my van without too much trouble. Once back to my van, I unload the groceries out of the basket on to the rear bench seat. Then I usually try to find the nearest discarded shopping cart to place the empty basket in to avoid having to return it all the way back in the store. After I arrive back at my apartment, I am then able to gather up all of the grocery bags onto my lap without having to go around to the rear the vehicle to collect the groceries from behind the lift gate. As with many of my other daily tasks, this routine came together with the idea of maintaining the efficiency of energy and motion in mind. My stubborn adherence to unloading my vehicle in as few, usually one, trips possible does lead to unintended consequences from time to time; namely, losing control of a grocery bag or an improperly secured gallon of milk tumbling to the ground as I traverse the one hundred and three feet of sidewalk back to my front door. Thus, possibly subjecting myself to more work, time, and/or exposure to inclement weather than if I had made multiple, less-encumbered trips. So last Thursday, with a lapful groceries and facing the prospect of executing the aforementioned unloading maneuvers with two inches of snow on the ground I decided, to hell with making unloading groceries a delicate, high-wire routine fraught with potentially protracted mishaps. And instead of unloading groceries into my van and returning the basket to the store I just kept the entire basket and took it home with me. When I exited my van a short time later amidst swirling snow flurries, free of any worries of losing errant packages of peppered deli turkey to a grimy, snow drift, I questioned why I never committed to this course of action much earlier.

Some might look at this act and call it stealing, as indeed one of my aides did, when she inquired why the red basket with the words “Meijer” emblazoned on it was sitting by the door. My response then was the same as it is here; I might agree with that implication if I were planning on keeping the basket at my place and utilizing it for activities other than its intended purpose. I'm more inclined to call it borrowing, but that's probably not completely correct since I didn’t bother to ask any of the higher-ups at the store if I could take the basket. So let's just call it “principled stealing.” I’ll promise to bring it back with me every time I shop there and furthermore I’ll promise not to use it at a different store, say the Kroger across town. In turn, Meijer will promise to be completely clueless that I have their basket on a quasi-permanent basis until an as yet-to-be determined time when I choose to release it back into circulation. It’s not like anyone is going to know a basket is missing anyway (short of a nightly basket count, if such a thing exists. And I’ll bet the sullen high school kid who does that count fudges those numbers all the time, just so he doesn’t have to recount all of the baskets over again before he clocks out). That’s an unspoken arrangement I think we both can live with…or I should say we could have lived with, that is. Not one full, return trip into my new master plan, I immediately began to regret my decision. And it’s all Kevin’s fault.

That damn Kevin. He’s one of those kids that work in every grocery store across the country. Probably graduated from high school at age 19 or 20 and not because he repeated any grades, still lives at home with his parents, bad haircut, incredibly nice, trustworthy, and hard working. He’s the kid that will always address me as “mister” even though we’re probably pretty close to the same age and unfortunately, he’s also the kid that has the mental skill set just advanced enough to handle the kinds of menial, repetitive tasks that guarantees a lifetime of employment mired in bottom-rung positions across the spectrum of the service industry. Jobs like, gathering shopping carts out of the parking lots of grocery stores. If Kevin is working and I’m in the parking lot with a basket full of groceries, like Radar O’Reilly, he will appear out of thin air and inquire if I need any help. He will also be perpetually fascinated by the fact that my van has a ramp that comes out of the side even though he’s seen it in action a dozen times or more, and he will make sure to tell me how much he likes it if I’m remotely anywhere within earshot. He is that kid. He is that Kevin. And somehow it’s that Kevin who may have blown the lid off my clandestine acquisition and intent to keep a red, Meijer shopping basket for my permanent convenience.

After purchasing my most recent cache of groceries, replete with the bulk of a gallon of both milk and juice—the perfect acquisitions to test my new theory of how taking the Meijer basket home with me will ease the unloading of the groceries into my apartment—I returned to my van. After depositing the basket, full to the brim with foodstuffs, on the back bench seat in my van I turned and reached for the door-close button on the interior pillar between the passenger side front door and opening created by the sliding door where the access ramp automatically folds up into the van. In that moment, as I waited the twenty seconds or so for the ramp and sliding door to close, I looked out and made direct eye contact with Kevin. There he stood--in the midst of pushing a train of shopping carts back into the store--two full rows of parked cars creating the distance between the two of us. I saw a look of befuddlement come across his face and I knew exactly what he was thinking. I watched him hold up his hand with index finger extended as if to indicate to me, “Wait, I think you forgot to give us our basket back. Stay there, mister. I’ll come get it from you.” In the span of the next five seconds I broke our locked stare to maneuver my wheelchair up into the correct driving position and when I looked back up he and the carts had disappeared. I looked back down to start the ignition and when I looked back up to get ready to leave, here came Kevin hustling towards my van and by this time the ramp and sliding door had completed their closing cycle. Kevin approached my passenger side door, half-craning his neck to see the basket through the window. I rolled down the window and he said to me, “I think you have one of our baskets.” Now if I were in his shoes and I caught someone packing one of the store’s baskets in their car’s trunk and I had said that exact same thing, the intent behind those words would’ve been, “who are you trying to fool jackass, stealing one of our baskets?” But not Kevin, he’s not wired that way. His words carried the tone of genuine concern; concern that all baskets and shopping carts get back into the store because that’s what it means to do a good job, as well as concern that this customer’s memory is so bad he almost inadvertently took one of the red baskets home.

For half a second I thought to myself that I’d say, “Oh sorry, I forgot. Come around to this side and I’ll let you get it out of the back.” But, I didn’t forget. I was doing this on purpose and if I said to him that I’d forgotten, then I’d just be lying to the helpful, but ever-so-slightly challenged kid and I didn’t want to go down that path. So, I just looked at him and said, “I know. I need it. I need it to make it easier to get my groceries back into my apartment.” At which point I could see that Kevin was beginning to feel conflicted. I continued, “I will bring it back. I promise. The next time I go shopping I will bring it back.” Which is true, I will bring it back, and even though he did this sort of half-turn to look back at the store, as if to see if there was anyone in charge to approve of this course of action, I could see that my rationale kind of made sense to him. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to him, “next time” doesn’t mean later today or even tomorrow, if that’s what he was hoping I meant. “O.K.,” I said, not asking. And he relented.

So, the red basket came home with me for a second time. Worked like a charm too, one trip, nothing dropped on the ground. Just like I intended it would. Of course, the cognitive dissonance I’m feeling for using the Jedi Mind Trick on Kevin probably means that I’ll have to find my own basket to shop with in the future, so that I can take it to and from the store as I please…unless, that is, I can figure out a way to dodge him every time I want to steal that shopping basket from now on…

It’s a crazy world, Kevin. Sometimes rules get bent and even broken when violating them can serve a greater purpose. I’m sorry if that is confusing, but we’re talking about maximizing my level of convenience here.

Those Blue Diagonal Lines...

Mean “No parking,” Douche.

The Recovery Project moved out of their old diggs at the Livonia YMCA into a new clinic space in Livonia back in July. It’s a nice upgrade; more space, new equipment, no more having to share facilities with the YMCA patrons. However the new clinic shares office space with a medical walk-in clinic, a family practice, an eye doctor, and a pharmacy in an adjacent building. There are five accessible parking spots available in the entire shared parking lot, four in the front near the building's main entrance and one spot sort of hidden around the corner of the building by the employee entrance. What at one time may have been a sufficient number of accessible parking spots before The Recovery Project moved in the office complex is not any longer.

To the casual observer, one accessible parking spot is as good as the next, but the well-initiated knows that certain spots are more desirable than others. In most large parking lots, especially at newer stores/malls, some spots will be marked “van accessible.” This means that the area designated for passenger unloading, by the diagonal lines painted on the ground, will be much wider than that of a typical accessible spot. There are no such spaces in the parking lot at The Recovery Project’s new clinic, but almost every one of their clients (me included) arrives in some sort of accessible van transportation. We are all looking for a parking spot with sufficient room to drop a lift or ramp from the passenger side of their vehicle. In the five accessible spots that are provided in the parking lot there is just enough room available to drop a wheelchair ramp, assuming everyone who needs an accessible spot has properly followed accessible-parking decorum. This is often times not the case and it has quickly become my latest pet peeve.

I very rarely encounter accessible spots occupied by a vehicle that has no right parking in that space. And in that instance, it doesn’t really bother me to find someone parked in a spot where they shouldn’t be parking. I understand a little asshole-ery every now and again. These are usually people who simply just don’t care about their impact on the community-at-large and therefore they’re easy to deal with.  I’ll just see their not-caring and raise them a not-caring-if-their-car-door-“accidentally”-gets-all-scratched-up because they’re blocking my spot. No, my biggest parking frustration comes from drivers like the owner of the car in the accompanying picture*.

First of all, why do the parking inept inevitably choose to drive friggin' land yachts like this Caprice Classic? I’m sure the good people of Flint appreciated it back in ’92 when you decided to buy American, but good god, Admiral. If you can’t get the U.S.S. Missouri properly squared up to the moorings out at Pearl, then it’s either time to let the harbor pilot bring her up to the dock, or take a commission on a smaller boat.

Now, on rare occasions these cockamamie parking jobs may have been performed with an actual purpose in mind. In the case above, the intent is to provide the driver with ample space to exit the vehicle without having to navigate over deadly, uneven, hip-shattering curbs. This is often done in scenarios in which two accessible parking spots share a common unloading zone, the left-hand spot being bordered by the aforementioned impassible terrain, and the right-hand spot is already occupied by a whale-like, Town Car-type vehicle. Fine, I understand the rationale – safety first – but the execution of this maneuver has domino effect ramifications that irritate the hell out of me. Here’s why:

I show up to the parking lot in my van, the accessible spaces are full, save for the space that the Town Car has just exited. The parking space to the immediate right of the now-open accessible spot is occupied by another car. Needing room on the right side of my van to drop my exit ramp, I have three options: I can pull up right next to Orville’s crooked car into the space intended for unloading between our two accessible parking spots and drop my ramp into what should be my parking spot (see fig.1 below); I can drive out to the back of the parking lot in B.F.E. and park diagonally across two regular spots, thus guaranteeing myself sufficient room to exit my van; or I can back my van –because I know how to drive – into the open accessible space, positioning the designated unloading zone on the starboard side of my vehicle where it’s needed.

(figure 1.)

Option one alleviates my problem for the time being, but leaves me possibly victim of having a car pull into the vacated open space to my right after I’ve exited my vehicle and folded my ramp back in place. When I return, not only do I run the risk of not having enough room to drop my ramp again, but I’m also now the jerkoff who parks in the way of everyone else. Option two isn’t much better than the first because not only am I blocking two spaces, but it totally defeats the purpose of having close-to-entryway accessible parking privileges. Furthermore, I again look like a complete fool who can’t get his car properly positioned into a parking spot. However, I have resorted to this tactic on numerous occasions when the absolute lack of available accessible parking spaces deems it necessary. At this point, I feel it’s painfully obvious the only acceptable solution is option number three. It’s the only way to meld the goals of helping to achieve some semblance of parking lot order and maintaining my high-minded opinion of myself in comparison to others.

We, the accessible-parking needy, are all in the same boat together and have undoubtedly all experienced a point in time in which our valued accessible parking space has been corrupted by someone else’s poor understanding of their vehicle's spatial footprint or straight-up inability to park. Therefore, with the frustration of that experience stored in the brain, it makes no sense, if only in the self-serving interest of preserving one’s own sanity, to perpetuate that same behavior.

I’m glad we cleared that up. Now move your stupid car because you're f'n it up for the rest of us.

*for the record, the driver of the Caprice was a nice, slow-moving, old lady that said "hi" to me as I left. As far as I know, she is not a douche.