Stuff Cripples Want: The Store Bought Edition

When I was a little kid, the Sears Christmas catalog was still huge: pages upon pages upon pages of glorious toys that I would flip through oh-so-slowly, imagining what great heights of joy I could achieve if only the 5-story dollhouse and the Barbie that swam were mine, all mine.

Now I have grown up, and the Sears Big Book isn't big anymore. My catalog love has been transferred to the fascinating world of online lists of accessibility products, which are my new toys. Oooh, I want the Quickie All-Sport Pro with the half-deep seat pan and the high platform foot plate! And oh. my god. Have you seen this wheelchair that can climb stairs??!

I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to this stuff, and sometimes I click through it and practically drool on the keyboard. I've bought a few of the smaller things I pinned: the extra large heating pad, the knockdown stationary handcycle,  the acupressure mat. When a box comes in with something I have saved up for that will make my life easier or more comfortable or more active, the heavens open and a host of angels starts singing Handel's Messiah. (Okay, so I'm exaggerating. That hasn't happened yet. But I'm convinced it would, if one day the box contained an unassembled  recumbent bike that I could put together with my Dad and then ride and ride and ride until I passed out.)

Perhaps this infatuation with things isn't so great, even if they would make my life easier. After all, I can get by without most of them: all I really need is a pair of crutches and a scooter, though I'd give up some fingers for a decent manual, and my right foot for the Quickie All-Sport Pro with the half-deep seat pan and the high platform foot plate. I was raised to be tough. My mother beat toughness into me with anything she could lay her hands on. My father was better, but he didn't coddle: I was expected to at least try to find a way to do something on my own before I asked for help. If I encountered a physical obstacle, he made me use my brain to figure a way around it. Most of the accessibility aids I had when I was young were things I'd find just laying around: milk crates as step stools, long sticks for reaching, even things like low grapevines if I needed to rest while we were hunting mushrooms in the woods, which had the added benefit of being incredibly like all-natural playground swings.

Thanks to Dale, I'm fairly adaptable. My body might not bend and flex, but my mind does. Put to it, I can figure out a way to do almost anything, comme ci: 

And yet, I like to look at, and occasionally buy, the things someone else's brain has already devised. Cases in point:

1. The electronic dustpan that sucks stuff up so you don't have to bend down. I know I could buy a plastic dustpan with a long handle at Dollar General for like, 5 bucks, but the Eye Vac is just cool. Part of me wants it just so I can push stuff at it and watch it get sucked up. And it would ostensibly eliminate that annoying dustpan dirt line.

2. WeatherChaps Waterproof Lap Cover. There are cheap ponchos in the world. There are garbage bags. And then there's this beautiful creation: a bag I can zip my legs into so my lap doesn't get wet. Since I live in a state that gets an average rainfall of over 40 inches per year (and since I'm convinced most of it falls directly on Lock Haven, does not pass Go, and does not collect $200), this could be a real asset. Something tells me it would beat tearing the bottom out of 20 gallon trash bag and stepping into it like it's a plastic maxi skirt. 

This is the meaning of jealousy.

3. Sonaris Reclining Bath Lift. Okay, so I have a shower chair. Okay, so it's perfectly serviceable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes a girl just wants to bathe in vast amounts of bubbles, dammit. And every time I want to bathe in vast amounts of bubbles, I have to risk falling and breaking my neck trying to get in and out of the tub. A shower chair is not equal to a bath lift. A shower chair won't lower me into the bubbly goodness and then lift me out when I'm done. A bath lift will. And a good one like the one you see here will also cost me literally thousands of dollars, which of course I don't have. I wouldn't even have shoes on my feet if it weren't for the generosity of others; forget the cost of a bath lift. But that doesn't stop me from wanting one. If I had a bath lift, I would probably never get out of the tub. I'd just relocate my whole life to the bathroom and live in the tub like some forgotten daughter of Poseidon. It would be so glorious.

So now that I've made my opening bid and listed some superb exemplars, where is this post going? How do I wrap it up? I feel like it should have some kind of moral, i.e. Don't covet stuff; be proud of your adaptability, etc. etc. and so on and so forth.  But alas, I am not Aesop. I'm not my friend Sarah over at The Clerical Error, either. She could make a parable out of this, I'm sure. I do have an idea, though:

Let's have some participation, class!! 

Name one thing you want that you could live without. It could be anything: a new car, a cootie-catcher, what have you. Just name one thing and leave it as a comment to this post. It's been said that you are what you eat; I have a theory that you are what you want. I've shown you guys some things I want. Now it's your turn. What do you want? Why? It doesn't have to be serious. I used to want Polly Pocket play sets, but I never got them. I'm interested in what you guys have to say. Let's have some fun! Spark a discussion, maybe. Have a chuckle or two. (Possibly salvage this post's lack of a moral of the story ....?)

Ready?

GO!