Half Life – 8 – freedom automatic
18th December 2020
Free at last! Free at last! It maybe not quite on a level with Mandela’s 27 years but, then again, it’s not a country that’s changing, only a car. In fact, my journey to freedom will not involve any long walking at all, just a hobble on the sticks to a wonderful automatic car that will not require me to use my decorative, but otherwise useless, left leg. Months of optimistic physiotherapy have resulted in absolutely no change in its ability to perform the basic bending functions usually associated with a leg. Even with the use of an automated leg-bending machine, borrowed from the Spanish Inquisition, it has dogmatically refused to improve on the half-bent position it chose to be in several months ago. I have, however, confessed to all my sins as a heretic and begged forgiveness from the Mother Church. The leg is doomed to be dragged about forever as a reminder that walking is possible, but only for other people. Experiments in driving a manual car with just an operational right leg did not prove successful and I would not recommend it.
The new automatic car is a gift from The Wife, carefully timed for Christmas. More than a very attractive mode of transport - the car, not The Wife (although she is very attractive too) – it is the gift of freedom. Like most families in The Village, we could survive with one car, but it’s hard and requires a degree of planning and coordination which is simply beyond us. Changing one of our manual cars for one that doesn’t need two legs to operate was long overdue; a delay entirely caused by my belligerence. Would it be ungracious to mention that the new automotive addition to our family will also allow me to pick up The Boys from school, drive them to and from sports clubs, go to ‘click and collect’ at the supermarket, and make the short trip to The Village shop? I won’t say anything in case she decides to get out the leg-bending machine again. I am thinking of giving The Wife a right foot operated sit-on lawn mower for her birthday next summer, so I can give her the gift of not mowing the lawn.
The sheer joy of the first drive was unexpected. Re-discovering the freedom to leave the confines of our house reignited long dormant features of my life. Within seconds behind the wheel my highly creative swearing had returned together with my ability to comment accurately on the driving abilities of others sharing the road with me. More significantly, I now get to use the greatest gift cancer and disability can bestow. The Blue Badge. It’s an object which grants the bearer the power to induce eye-bending guilt in mere mortals. Kept hidden until after parking in a disabled space, to ensure some seriously disapproving looks, its appearance initiates an immediate guilt-ridden look away. If, with careful timing, the taking out of the crutches can be done just as the onlooker looks back to see what is wrong with me, the ‘guilt double’ is achieved. This is only topped by a little-known additional superpower of the Badge; to park on double yellow lines for three hours. Comments on my future ownership of a parking ticket, in particular in parts of The Town nearby where GCSEs are rare, can be guaranteed. It’s worth parking on double yellows just for the joy of hobbling away smiling as onlookers marvel at my audacity.
Freedom brings back the opportunity to restart other forms of entertainment to fill the day. As the ability to go to supermarkets comes back, so does my favourite shopping game. Once I have mastered getting the wheelchair in and out of the car, and the curious-looking trollies that fix to the hated chair, I think it should be possible. For several years I have added joy to my day, and that of others engaged in the otherwise unexciting act of marching up and down supermarket lanes, by adding random items to other people’s trollies without them knowing. It’s vital to find a way to watch them when they get to the check out. The expression on a smartly dressed elderly lady’s face when she unloads a 24 pack of condoms with a double discount pack of ‘fun lube’ from underneath her cauliflower makes shopping worth it. As is the confusion when an exotic array of vegetables is uncovered by a couple who look like they are in need of some vitamins in their pre-prepared diet. To date, I’ve only been caught twice and every time the ‘cancer card’ has worked wonders as I explain I was sure it was my trolly and how the chemo-drugs meddles with my mind. The best one was a dear friend who I kept passing in the aisles, always going the other way to me. She didn’t notice that every time we passed, smiled and said hello again with an awkward laugh, I added something from the shelf not to my jumbled pile, but to hers. If you know who you are, forgive me. I’m sure you needed the brown shoe polish, custard creams, and those two tins of minestrone soup.
Like a liberated Mr Toad, and blessed with similar driving capabilities, I am dusting off my driving gloves, digging out the flat cap, and gearing up to enjoy my deliverance from incarceration. A tour of local disabled parking spaces is planned, preferably ones with coffee shops, supermarkets, and pubs attached. With my left leg’s demonic schemes to keep me trapped indoors finally thwarted, I may even try to take JJ for a run around. Toot! Toot!
🤣🤣🤣 love it Charlie - poop poop!!! 🚘
With great power comes great responsibility - enjoy the power of the blue badge