Having Difficulty with Directions is Not New to Barton & Megan.
The headline might be out of a tabloid, or maybe from our own crazy lives. Barton told his side of this story during a Toastmasters Humorist Competition last week, and I was sitting on the sidelines biting my tongue because- oh, I so wanted to tell my version. So here it is:
It had not been that long since we moved to our new house, and I was still getting acclimated to the streets, directions, where we were in relation other places in the community. Barton had a meeting that day, which I knew about, and he had taken the bus, as usual.
So I was puzzled when Barton called asking me for directions on how to get home. Apparently he decided to walk home instead of waiting for the bus, and he took the Greenway, a set of sidewalks through parks that runs through Raleigh. However, the Greenway had not connected where he thought and he was stuck in this neighborhood going around in circles.
Now I am directionally challenged- when I was a teenager, once I got lost on one-way streets in downtown Atlanta & it took me an hour to find myself out. All I can say is- thank God for GPS systems. But in this case, I had to break out a map- actually find the cross street to find where Barton was and how I could get there, which took some time.
I did look outside at one point to see the bright summer sky turn ominous and dark as I was getting into the car- just then, as the bottom fell out. Another call. A neighbor had called to tell me Barton was no standing in the rain and was drenched, of which I knew. When I arrived- they were holding an little umbrella over him, trying to keep him dry, which was not working at all. Now the only point to keeping Barton’s wheelchair dry is that when it gets wet, it could have problems, but Barton out in the rain- he would play all day, so it apparently bothered the neighbors more than it bothered Barton. We were both soaked through. (This isn’t the first time Barton got both of us caught outside walking in the rain, nor the last.)
Another neighbor drove by who had a truck, but Barton’s wheelchair weighs about 200 pounds- it’s not something anyone could manhandle. Now there is a group of people all huddled around Barton trying to figure out how to get the wheelchair in the truck. So I drove back home- by this time the rain was coming down in sheets. I put the two pieces of the metal ramp in the back of the car thinking there was enough room if I put them inside on the back seat diagonally.
Only to find that the back window could not hold the pressure and literally shattered when I closed the door. So now Barton’s still in the rain with neighbors holding an umbrella over him and I am cleaning up tiny pieces of broken glass from the ground, inside the car, it was everywhere- all in the torrential downpour.
By the time I got back to where Barton was, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining, and he decided to walk home, but he still had to follow me out of the windy neighborhood- which was a good thing since all of this chaos happened because he was impatient and didn’t want to wait on the bus.
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