David's Day

David sat on the couch and looked out the window. “Boring!” He thought to himself. “No one to discuss science or philosophy of law with. No one cares! I wish my dad was here. But, no, HE has to be in Seattle and I have to be here in California because of some stupid judge. Okay, so my parents divorced when I was 3 years old. However, after numerous appeals, the judge still thinks mothers knows best how to raise children and that everyone forgets how many drinks they’ve had from time to time. Since when is being the town drunk normal?!? Okay, so not everyone knows how much she really drinks and its not like she hits me or anything. Mom simply comes home, complains about a headache and goes to bed and all this at noon. She gets up at 5 p.m., fully refreshed and rearing to go off with another boyfriend, leaving the house by 5:30 at the latest! The cycle repeats, day in and day out. I get to watch myself, pay the bills, buy the food and see to any repairs on the house myself. Oh yeah, tell me how well SHE knows best how to raise me. I’ve been raising myself since I was 3. Fortunately, I’ve taught myself how to read. So teaching myself how to cook was easy. It was waiting until my muscles were strong enough that was the hard part! Might as well grab my swimsuit and go to Madison Lake.”

David hopped on his bike and took off. “Here’s Dr. David, racing to the lake to help his drowning victim. Whirrl - whirrrrrl.” Screech! “Red light, green light and off goes the ambulance with Dr. David in tow. Quick! Make a right and a left and another right and whoa - Ivy U! Let’s go!”
Forgetting about his imaginary drowning victim, he headed for the library. Once inside, he decided to stop off at the bookstore first. The bookstore had rows upon rows of books. David was in awe. He loved books - especially any book that helped him succeed with his plan. He grabbed any science, engineering and math textbook and lab kits that might help him with his plan. Next, he grabbed notebooks, another laptop computer, this one years faster than the one his dad got him, pens, pencils and anything else he thought might remotely be useful. After he paid the cashier, he started the laborious task of taking everything out to the bike and plopped them in the trailer. Next, he stopped off at the new Science bookstore. This bookstore contained all the graduate level books. Determined to get his plan working, he bought every thing in this store he thought might be remotely useful, including over 190 textbooks, workbooks, lab manuals, kits and materials. He had been developing this plan since the age of 2.
David thought to himself, “This was it, the final steps before building the project to see if it worked. And, if it did work, then I would have the key to my plan. No one would suspect I built it, I planned it. After all, I haven’t even graduated from 5th grade yet. How could a mere ten year old build something so economical…surely, a former grad student did this.” The plan - every since his parents started talking about divorcing he started working on the plan. David was proud of his mind and even more proud of the fact that society refused to believe any kid could be so smart and a prodigy in the engineering sciences. This fact, he would not change for the world! The only thing he had to do next, was buy the materials that he couldn’t get here, to actually make a working model of his plan. That, however, was going to have to wait. He looked at his trailer that was now overflowing with bags and looked at the 5 bags that laid at his feet. Not one easily put out, he left his purchases and went back into the main bookstore and purchased 4 bike bags that attach on the sides of the wheels. He also purchased bungee cords just in case. Several minutes later, he finally was able to get on his bike and attempt take off. The bike would not budge. He stood up and slowly forced one pedal down and then the other. Finally, he got the bike moving at a decent speed. It helped to finally get to a slight decline. He thought about all the times he had purposely ran away from home and flew to his dad’s home. Of course, he was always picked up and brought back home. That was all apart of his plan - to establish a routine, a pattern. Besides, his dad had books with info that he needed. David didn’t, and couldn’t subscribe to “Scientific Engineering Journal International”. Mom thought he was to young and Dad actually agreed! When he finally reached home with his loot, having skipped the lake completely, he unloaded his loot and plopped down on the couch with a book and studied.

************ Mary's Day

Mary sat stone faced on her bed. “I want to do something - but what? I’ve read all of my books, T.V. is boring. Hey, wait a minute, I haven’t done my exercises for today!” Plopping down on the floor, she walked on her hands to get over to her wheelchair. She grabbed her swimsuit and quickly changed. For all practical purposes, her legs were useless. She was born with cerebral palsy. Her arms, however, weren’t affected at all, nor was her brain, despite popular belief to the contrary. After tossing her wheel chair in her bike trailer, she got on her specially constructed bike that allowed her to pedal with her arms instead of her feet, and took off to Madison Lake. Mary parked her bike and then used her wheelchair to get where the grass met the sand. She learned long ago not to insist on wheeling wheelchairs through sand. The last time she did this, the wheelchair got stuck in the sand. She had to sit down on the sand and try to toss her wheelchair as far as she could. It took her half an hour to finally get her wheelchair out of the sand after tossing it an inch or two several times. By the time she was done, she was too tired to swim. What a waste! With her head in the water, she practiced the front crawl using her arms only while her legs dragged behind her. She had a special Styrofoam that she put between her legs to keep them up. She practiced turning without the aid of a wall to push off of. She used her back muscles and hips to propel her trunk out of the water and to propel her legs up into the air then allowed her legs to fall back into the water. The clouds moved in over her head.
“Oh great, rain! Just what I need!” Mary quickly swam to shore and walked on her hands over to her wheelchair. “I wish I would have left my wheelchair in my trailer. It would have been faster.” The raindrops slowly came down. Quickly, she transferred herself onto her wheelchair and took off as fast as the grass would allow her to go, ignoring her tired arms. Once at her bike, she tossed her wheelchair into the trailer, hopped on her bike and took off. The rain came down harder as the sky grew darker and darker.

David's Day, continued:

David looked out his window. “That’s funny, its dark outside! It can’t be that late already ! Mom is not home yet. Rain, duh!” He rolled his eyes and went back to studying. Hunger pains soon set in. “Well, it looks like I’m eating here. Might as well call for a pizza, no lets make it something less messy” as he looked at his new textbook. He thought for a moment, “I wonder if Noodles Galore delivers? Oh well, I will try anything once.”
“Noodles Galore, Ted speaking, how may I help you?”
“yes, do you deliver?”
“For a minimum order of $20.00 we deliver for free.”
“Excellent, I would like 2 - make that 4 orders of Fettucine Alfredo with mushrooms, broccoli and red bell peppers. Extra, extra red bell peppers please.
“What kind of noodles?”
“Spinach Rotini”
“Anything to drink?”
“Yes, 6 Jupiter’s Extra-Strength Cherry Ginger Ales.”
“Cash or charge?”
“Cash.”
“That will be $60.00 and will be there in 45 minutes. Thank you!”
“No, thank you! I greatly appreciate your service!”
“You’re Welcome! Good-bye. Your order will arrive shortly.”

After David hung-up, he realized that his address wasn’t asked for. The phone rang before he could even call Noodles Galore back.
“Hello?”
“I forgot to get your address. Sorry!”
“Yes, I was just realizing that myself…”

************

Mary got half-way home when it started raining cats and dogs. By the time she got home, she was drenched!

“Just look at you,” exclaimed her Mother. “You’re all wet from head to toe!”
“No duh!” thought Mary to herself, then said out loud “But of course I’m wet. You would be too if you got caught in a rain storm!”v “Go to your room and change into something dry! And you might as well take a hot shower. You’ll catch a cold. Don’t I ever catch you pulling that one again! I thought you knew better than that!”
“But mom, there wasn’t a rain cloud in …”
“Don’t you but me, now march!”

“What’s eating her?” thought Mary to herself as she wheeled herself to her room, grabbed a towel and headed for the shower. “A warm shower will feel good. That rain was too cold.” She transferred herself to the seat built into the shower. Grabbing the shower hose, she doused herself with the warm water. She used a back brush to help her reach all parts of her. She knew others who needed help getting themselves clean because of their physical disabilities, but not her. She could do many things for herself, including reaching things that were out of reach. She had a special grabber for that. She wheeled herself to her closet. “Hmm, should I wear the red outfit or the blue one?” The red outfit consisted of a red circle skirt with matching red top that had lavender colored roses in a smile shape across the chest. The blue outfit was an ankle length dress with lace around the neck. Both were short sleeved and both tended to get caught in her wheels if she didn’t arrange the skirt just right. She chose the red one. She laid down on her bed to get the skirt where she wanted it. Her abs worked well and she could still touch her toes, so, she did her sit-up to get the skirt bottom near her ankles. She wheeled herself back into the living room.
“Good, you’ve dressed up. We are eating out for supper tonight. Dad is stuck working late so it will just be the two of us.”

Mary went back into her room and grabbed her rain coat and umbrella. She attached the umbrella to the back of her chair. It had two handles that snapped into 2 holders attached to the back of the wheelchair. The umbrella was actually a canopy. The device kept her dry, yet it allowed her to maneuver herself without obstructions. She grabbed dry gloves from the drawer. These gloves protected her hands from getting blisters. She called out to mom. “I’ll be in the car.”

“Okay, I will be down in a minute!”

Mary opened the back door and wheeled to the car, closing the door behind her. She opened the side door of the car, got out of her wheelchair, sat on the floor, folded up her wheelchair and shoved it into the backseat. Next, she opened up her door and climbed in, using her arms to lift her body onto the seat. She used her hands to lift her legs into the car. “Not bad for a 10 year old. I bet some adults in wheelchairs would have problems doing what I can do!” Mary was proud of the strength in her arms. Maybe, too proud. Her dad had bought dumbbells for Christmas one year for himself. She naturally took to them and had been working out ever since, being careful to not overdo it and injure herself. He officially gave them to her after that and bought himself a new set.

************

David munched happily away at the Alfredo. It was good and creamy with lots of parmesan cheese. Parmesan Cheese was his second favorite cheese. But you wouldn’t know it, because he puts parmesan on practically everything, even hotdogs! Stilton cheese was his favorite, but is too hard to get. It is the stilton imported from England that he liked. The Wisconsin equivalent was way too salty and lacked the proper flavor. The proper stilton tasted somewhat like a strong blue cheese but is 4 times more expensive. Blue cheese used to be his favorite. Now, he thinks blue cheese tastes like it has been drafted, like it’s army food from a tin can. His dad has always thought that David was crazy and should like both cheeses. Besides, whoever heard of cheese being drafted! David taught himself how to make stilton cheese soup with celery. Yum! He wished it wasn’t raining out so he could get more stilton. Sometimes, he can find it at this one grocery store that specialized in imported foods. After cleaning up after himself, he got ready for bed. He thought he would get up early and catch the sunrise.