There’s this curious traveling trade show called the Abilities Expo that draws disabled folk of all shapes and sizes, races, religions, and creeds. It’s a gathering of manufacturers demonstrating the latest technology for getting in and out of bed, going to the bathroom, etc. Basically it’s a toy store for gimps.
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And all it costs is $10 zillion. So now you’ve just got to have it. But unless you have $10 zillion on you, you have to set about the excruciating process of squeezing it out of some place like the Department of Public Aid. Which is worse, you ask yourself, the pain of genuflecting to Public Aid or the pain of living without the hippest of transfer devices?
Another time the home builders met in the Astrodome, where John Wayne was supposed to give the opening pep talk. But he died. So they flashed his face on the scoreboard and played over the loudspeaker the voice of a John Wayne impersonator exhorting all to do their patriotic duty and build, build, build!
The Love Lift is no ordinary motorized wheelchair, the salesman said. He removed a flap under the seat, revealing a hole–voila, the Love Lift was now the Love Commode. The video showed how the seat and back flatten into one long pallet that swivels to ease the transfer into bed. The Love Lift is the Swiss Army wheelchair. Price tag: $9,500.
I told myself I would call Public Aid first thing in the morning.
