It's Like Running in Place...

**CAUTION - SICK SENSE OF HUMOR OF MSA PATIENT AND CARE-GIVER AHEAD**    Sam started feeling a little better after she warmed up today.  That and sheer will power seems to drive her...errr, drive, now that is another story of the day.  As I had mentioned before, Sam is wheelchair bound 99% of the time and until we get the ramps and chair lifts installed, we are at the mercy of using the local big box store's power chairs when we go out to do errands and shopping. Keep in mind that Sam's chair is like a well tuned Harley and the store's chairs are like broken down scooters, they don't even drive the same.  Sam is DUI with the new medicine changes on top of the state of the chairs, DUI is not funny in a car, but in a broken down power chair, it can be quite comical.  I don't know what it is with people when they see a power chair, it is like a moth to a light, they seem to be drawn to it and feel compelled to step in front of her or form a line down the side of her as she moves slowly forward...oops, backwards...uh oh, forward again.  Dang we need a magnetic cling when they are in the process of tweaking her meds to put on the chairs that warn pedestrians to follow closely at your own risk!  On down the isles we weave, something catches her eye, me close at the edge of the chair she stops, dang my feet stop but my body is still in motion and I almost land in her lap as she laughs hysterically.  On down the isles we go again, by now we are drawing many sidewards glances as to the two hillbillies come to town and play on a scooter drunk kind of looks.  Welcome to Kentucky boys!  This is our favorite past time here don't ya know?  Geeze people, get a life!  Anyway, like a crow and a shiny object Sam's eyes are drawn again to a point of interest and flat stop again.  She laughs at me and says dang karma is a fun thing, you drop me in a bush last week and I trip you up and run over your toes....ahhhhh, funny Sam, not!  So after many a bumped butt (great way to get the attention of the cute guy in the cereal isle), many a near miss of me falling on mine and we decide it is a bathroom break time.  Now there is another level of comic relief in a public restroom at your local big box store when you have MSA advanced stages.  The cart of the wheelchair is loaded up with items not yet checked out, so we have to leave it at the door and trek through the long restroom to the handicap stall, me with a death clamp under her shoulder and her holding a wall.  There are the looks again, dang hillbillies in town looks.  Why is it they put the handicap stall all the way at the end of a half a football length bathroom anyway?  We get Sam all situated and I go out of the stall to wait....giggling...more giggling...what the heck?  Oh gosh, what has she done now.  I ask if all is okay and she said it was like riding a bucking bronc, the seat was loose and she would lean one way and fall the other as the seat would rock back and forth.  Nothing like trying to cath a moving target in an MSA person on a unstable seat.  She finally gives up and we go on with her closing comments being that she is glad she didn't fall off, but then again maybe she should have because we would have had one heck of a shopping spree for free!  Told you we have a sick sense of humor developed by daily challenges.  We now call them dirt piles to compact into yet another brick for our crazy house!