Panic at the Zoo

These days I walk with a bit of a limp.  This is due to an unfortunate incident I had with a mechanical bull in Mexico. It wasn’t the bull’s fault actually. I rode him like a champ: waving my imaginary cowboy hat above my head and slapping its backside. When I got thrown off, I landed with relative grace. But then I got cocky. I wanted a second turn. When I ran up to the bull once more, another guy got in my way. I jumped to the side to avoid him and POP, I tore the ACL and meniscus in my knee. It hurt. A lot.

When I returned to Seattle, I had surgery.  My doctor told me that I would have to be completely off my right leg for a month. For a few days this was fine, but on Saturday the sun came out. In Seattle if the sun’s out, you gotta get outside because you never know when you will see it again. I convinced my fiancée Sergey,  to take me to the zoo because I love animals, and they rent wheelchairs.

It started off great. The sun was out, the penguins were adorable, Sergey was pushing me around like a queen in my wheelchair. But suddenly I needed to pee, badly. The painkillers I was on kind of made me into a human sieve. Liquid came in, it would go out. The situation was urgent.

Sergey pushed me to the ladies’ room. I saw it was missing that magic button that opens doors for handicapped people, and it wasn’t possible to open the door from my wheelchair. Sergey held the door for me, but once I was inside, I was on my own.

It was like a cave in there. It was dark, there was the sound of dripping water, there was water or possibly not water all over the floor, I just wanted to get in and get out. But when I looked over at the aisle to the handicapped bathroom, I realized I had a big problem: not only was it super narrow, but it was also partially blocked by a stroller containing a baby.

What happened next can only be explained by the fact that my bladder started singing to me “The Final Countdown,” “do do do do, do do do do do… you have 30 seconds Lauren.” I thought, somehow I could squeeze past the baby stroller and make it to the bathroom. I couldn’t. It was complete gridlock: wheelchair against baby stroller.

This baby didn’t make any noise, he just looked at me like a grumpy old man, as if he were my grandfather, always disappointed in me. I couldn’t take his judgy eyes any longer.

I jumped out of my wheelchair so that I was on my good leg like a pogo stick and I was holding onto the bathroom stalls like monkey bars. This way I could monkey bar pogo stick my way over to the handicapped bathroom. It wasn’t graceful. I was grunting and panting and whacking my knees against the metal doors. But eventually I made it and I sat on the seat with relief.

This turned to disgust when I realized my zoo map had fallen into a puddle of God knows what on the floor. How would I ever find the river otters? But there was no way I was going to pick that up. I never found the river otters that day.

I heard the door slam. The mother must have left in a big hurry. I wonder what she had thought when she saw my hands gripping the top of her stall, heard my grunting and hopping. I don’t blame her for rushing her kid out of there.

I finished up and monkey bar-pogo sticked my way back to my wheelchair. When I sat down, my hip pushed the chair backwards out of my reach. I was completely off balance. I started falling. I could see the dirty not-water rushing up to meet me... when suddenly I felt two strong hands under my armpits yank me up, and help me sit safely in my chair.

At first I felt shocked. Then grateful. Then uncomfortable as I realized her hands were by my boob area. But she removed her hands. She was so nice. She didn’t speak English, but she even pushed me over to the sink so that  I could wash my hands and even pulled down paper towels for me that were out of my reach.

I don’t know if it was gratitude to this beautiful stranger who helped me. Or perhaps more likely the massive amount of painkillers I was on, but I started crying really hard. Then I heard the door close. She had left and I was stuck in the bathroom with no way to get out.

But then I remembered my phone and called my fiancé to open the door for me.

Although it is funny now that it is over, it was humiliating to not be able to use the bathroom by myself. I don’t know much about bathroom design, but it seems to me that they could either make bathrooms that are open and accessible to everyone, or hire staff to catch folks like me under the armpits. And I don’t know about you, but I think nobody should ever have to monkey bar/ pogo stick their way to the bathroom!