by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2006/02/09 12:15 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2006/02/09/528696.aspx
(nothing technical, yada yada yada....)
Years ago, travelling was always a pain. At first because I had to walk with the cane which was hard over long distances. Even standing in line was a pain.
And then when I started asking for wheelchair service because I had to deal with all of the problems in the particular piece of the service industry (an industry which lives on tips since if their hourlies were any lower they'd have to pay for their jobs).
And in hotels I stopped asking for accessible rooms because they were always farther away from the elevators.
Then I got the scooter.
Suddenly, I am always pushed to the handicapped short line at the airport, even though (since I am now sitting comfortably) I could probably wait in line.
And without me saying a word, I get rooms near the elevator. Even though the distance no longer matters to me -- I have a 10mile range on a fully charged battery!
So basically when things were hard there was not much infrastructure that simply made things easier automatically. And now that they are not, there is.
It's all backwards!
I must admit I feel a little guilty being in the short line at security in the airport now -- because I know I don't have to be (other than the fact that TSA wants me there for whatever policy reasons they have).
And I always preferred being nearer to the elevator, though never enough to ask for it. So it is odd to be given a consideration that I am not even asking for if someone else may need it.
Though honestly I cannot think of a way to fix all this, so this is just me bitching and moaning for no good reason. Sorry about that.
Well, there is one productive thing I can do, I can give some advice:
If there are people reading this who are now in that tough phase where everything is hard, I'd advise getting the scooter or wheelchair and realize that suddenly a lot of things do get easier.