Author: Tony Trott
Sometimes if feels as if pretty much everything is going against you; some issues can be minor, and some can be major. A lot of times you can decide for yourself what is major and what is minor (you don’t always have a say in the matter, but sometimes you do and that is because you are you). I’m starting to sound like a Dr. Suess but I guess I can definitely think of worse things. And sometimes what you think is major to you might be minor to someone else. I suppose we all understand that there are plenty of ‘big picture’ issues around the world today and if I thought about them all the time, I would be depressed and upset. However, there are also plenty of seemingly minor issues some of which I can take care of without much difficulty (or money!) that will make things better or simpler for me.
For the past few years, I have had issues where my feet tend to slip off of the front of my footplate on my wheelchair. Not to get into the anatomy of the foot, but I believe it was 
because the balls of my feet did not stay consistently on the footplate because it was too short. I kept having to manually put my feet in place, only to have them slide off a few minutes later. This may seem like a minor inconvenience, but when it happens nearly every ten or fifteen minutes all day long, it is beyond annoying.
So, I finally decided (yes, I should not have waited so long) to do something about it and I talked to the guy who repairs my chair when it breaks and asked him if giving me a bigger footplate would be an option for my chair. He said it would, and he could fix it without much difficulty. He is very handy, and he said this was a simple fix; he would find a good piece to fit my chair and said that I could make an appointment to 
come back in a few weeks for installation.
I did just that, and the new platform is great! Granted, I’d be going a bit overboard if I said that this bigger footplate has changed my life, but it has for sure made a big difference to me. So, maintain perspective and do things for yourself sometimes!
Schedules took over a month to coordinate but we were able to go ON the birthday.
My personal assistant dropped us off and we told her that we would text, but 90 minutes was a good ballpark timeframe for pickup. She left. When we got inside the first red flag was a counter that was not accessible. We were asked to scan our tickets, but we could not reach so Rosemary took my phone and handed it to the gentleman for scanning. We did not miss the opportunity to tell them that the desk violated guidelines under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Then there was a bit of a kerfuffle behind the desk with people walking back and forth. Soon, an attendant returned telling us that they were very sorry, but the elevator was out of service and we should have been notified by email and it was on the website. The exhibit can only be accessed by using stairs. I responded that I did not get an email telling me about the elevator outage and it was not on the website. He disappeared again and they told us we could use the freight elevator. Yes, sort of like the back door but we were determined to do this. Once again, he left and returned telling us that he felt very bad but the freight elevator was not usable.
