Yesterday afternoon Sean and I decided we’d meet for tea in his city, since he only lives an hour away from me. I had to leave straight away to do some errands and I noticed my battery was dying. So I took it round to the mechanic asking him if it was safe to drive to this city. He replaced my battery, tied it down (my old one wasn’t secured down, it had been left to roam free in the engine bay) and all up I was ¾ of an hour late.
So I got on the road with stereo blaring and cell phone charging. I got to the pizza place where we arranged to meet, and we went inside to order, or at least I ordered. Even though I had been talking to Sean the guy never noticed him in his wheelchair. So Sean made himself known, ordered his pizza, and we went back to his car to wait and exchange goodies. I showed him my new digital camera and he gave me some cool light up casters (right Sean, where’s the rest of my chair?), a program to use for my website, and some nappies to try. He threatened running off with my camera so I threatened running off with his flash Halls chair. Our pizzas were then ready and I followed him back to his place (all the while discovering how far out my speedometer was, he was going at 50km while I was “supposedly” going well over 60 km). We got to his place to be marauded by his two dogs. I’ll admit they looked very cute sitting there hoping for a bite of pizza, Sean didn’t think so though.
Sean suddenly said what an idiot he was and disappeared into the next room. He appeared again with his colours eclipse chair, and he had made an addition, it had cool red light up casters on it! I can tell you now, I couldn’t get my bum into that seat fast enough, and I told him straight out, your going to find it hard trying to get me out again. I did have to get out though, to go to the toilet.
I begged Sean (pretty much) to let me go for a walk in the chair. So he took me out on the streets and he snapped photos with my camera (they will be in the gallery). The footpath where Sean lives has an awful angle; I spent most of my time trying not to go on the road. Sean seemed to have it so easy; he’d push the wheel once and go straight, and actually get somewhere! He pointed out that the chair wasn’t adjusted for me and it had no camber, so that made me feel better.
We then decided we would cross the road several times. The first time I went down a driveway, I didn’t pop my casters late enough and I ended up stuck at the bottom. I figured out that it was easier for me to do it slowly rather that how Sean did it so quickly.
We got to a netball court beside a school where I started trying to pull wheelies. As you remember the first time I was in this chair I almost fell out trying to pull a wheelie, but this time I got it, and found my centre of balance straight away. I felt so warm and fuzzy when Sean told me he fell out a lot more before he found his centre of balance. So I decided I’d see how long I could hold a wheelie, and if I say so myself, for a first time, I was pretty good. So Sean decided I could learn how to go down curbs, since I had wheelies down. I watched him speed over the curb several times and felt rather “motivated” to do it myself. But as I edged closer to the curb I got nervous, “you want me to drop my chair all the way down there?” I pulled the required wheelie, rolled off the curb and landed on the road absolutely elated. Unfortunately the photos of that were a bit blurry.
It was then time to head home, so Sean led me up a big hill on the angled footpath. It was hard! Harder than trying to stay straight on the flat. We got back to his house where we had another coke and a belching contest. I then got in my car and headed home.
When I was ten minutes on the road my rev counter suddenly died. I tried changing gears, slowing down etc to see if it was just a random mistake but it still wouldn’t work. So I pulled over to see if stopping and restarting the car again would work, but then the car wouldn’t restart. So a rather distraught me rang my parents to get them to come get me. And I texted a rather unhelpful Sean (he couldn’t help cause of his partner). I tried to push my car further off the road to be safe, and I ended up pushing it into a ditch. My battery was dying again (drat that mechanic). I sat there in the dark on my own for about fifteen minutes until a lady stopped for me. She thought I had had a crash the way my car was. So she and her two friends offered to stay with me until my parents turned up. You know how when no one stops, no one stops, but as soon as one car stops, a whole bunch of people stop? Well…Two electricians in their 4×4 stopped to help. They looked at my engine and told me my alternator had died. My car had been taking power directly from my new battery rather than the alternator generating it’s own power. While this was happing, another man stopped and offered his services, so we used his tow rope to get my car out of the ditch. We all then towed it to the nearest town to meet my parents, they were all joking about the convoy asking where the helicopters were.
Now to add a new dimension to the story. I was on the graveyard shift last night from 11 pm – 7 am. My car arrived in the nearest town at about 10:40 pm. I had my older brother tell my work I’d be late. I got to work at 11:20 pm (we got my car to go enough to get home). I was really lucky in a way, I went to see the line leader to ask him where he wanted me, the line leader asked me how I was, I told him what happened, I could see his eyes widening as I told him bout my car rolling into a ditch. So he sent me home to “recover” and to be at work tonight.
So the morals of the story are that when your battery dies think “alternator” because that could be the reason your battery is dead. The next “moral” is that I will go at any length to be in a wheelchair, and hopefully “next time” won’t be so eventful.