Pickle for three, please

I met Marian the day I came to college in my week-old electric scooter, still learning how to drive it well. She was my assigned roommate in the residence hall and we were the first two female disabled students to ever room together at our university. With only a few accessible rooms, my freshman year was the first that there were enough women in wheelchairs to require two to a room to fit everyone in.

Campus housing had called me over the summer and asked if I was okay rooming with another disabled woman, apparently concerned if we'd have enough room to maneuver. I'd thought it was a stupid question -- if I wasn't okay with it, would they quick remodel another room before I arrived in two weeks? Also, the slim detail that my new roommate would also be using a wheelchair excited and startled me. I hadn't considered it before.

Marian and I were happy roommates and became close friends immediately. Our resident assistant turned out to be Anne, a disabled woman Marian had been tight with as a child at Easter Seals summer camp. Marian, pessimistic and wryly funny, and Anne, loudly hilarious and over-the-top, were a completely new experience for me. I hadn't had friends with disabilities -- let alone scooters or wheelchairs -- ever before. I revelled in the startling visual power we had when we went somewhere, lining up serially on a narrow sidewalk like a brief parade of fast go-cart Shriners or driving three (sometimes more) abreast across campus and talking and laughing like anyone else, but at our seated height.

Sophomore year, by arrangement, Marian and I shared a bathroom with Anne, and we often treated our two dorm rooms like a suite by keeping the bathroom doors open so the bathroom itself became a narrow hallway from one room to the other. While the bathroom -- just a toilet and an open area with grab bars for a shower and room for a shower chair -- was all tiled and slightly sloped to a central floor drain, there was an eight-inch ramp sloping an inch or two down outside either doorway (Anne's or ours) into the small sink/foyer area of each dorm room. The closets faced each bathroom door, so if you stood in our closet, you could look through the bathroom into Anne's closet, directly opposite.

Early one evening just after dinner, Marian and I were in our room. Marian was sitting in our small closet finding something and I was talking with her, my scooter parked in front of the closet doorway.


Anne came roaring through the bathroom into our room, laughing as she came down the little ramp. To our surprise, her Amigo scooter hit the side of my scooter and her front bumper lifted to rest on the platform of my scooter by my feet. The front wheel of her front-wheel drive was lifted off the floor.

So. Marian was trapped in the closet. I was parked in front of the closed door to the hallway, and Anne's scooter was hung up on mine. We all used our chairs full-time, so none of us was able to get out and push. We sat there surprised that three mobile adults could immobilize themselves without any of our chairs breaking down.

This was before cell phones, so we giggled when the phone rang and our answering machine clicked on. We contemplated what exactly we would shout if we decided to holler for help. Then we jokingly began conversations none of us wanted to hear and required a captive audience.

"Have you been saved by the Lord?"

"Let me tell you about my essay on Moby Dick."

"You know, my husband had a stroke recently and now he needs a wheelchair too...."

We nearly laughed ourselves sick before I managed to move my scooter back and forth enough to dislodge Anne's. It was a bit of a disappointment to be free. Suddenly the room was accessible to all of us again and we were a little less bound in common camaraderie.

It was one of the silliest, funniest moments of my life, though it doesn't translate well for the larger world. It's a crip thing, and probably rare at that. It's an example of what makes living with a particular disability a unique cultural experience. One I would never have found at home with my family.