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ISSUE #34.36 • HEADOUT •
NIGHT CABBIE

The obese old woman at Fred Meyer has a bad hip and a wheelchair...

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BY NIGHT CABBIE | nightcabbie at wweek dot com

[July 16th, 2008]

The obese old woman at Fred Meyer has a bad hip and a wheelchair, and needs to sit in the front seat. Which is fantastic, as it’s scorching hot and she doesn’t seem to have bathed in days. I grit my teeth, crank the A/C and count my blessings that it’s a relatively short trip. I’m even able to maintain a pleasant conversation, my consternation waning as we discuss the joys of avocados.

We arrive at her dilapidated apartment building in Milwaukie, and after I’ve unloaded her into her wheelchair she explains that I’ll have to go inside, fetch a cart for her groceries and take them up to her apartment for her. As I enter the dimly lit lobby, the sum of the cracked fluorescents, dingy walls and omnipresent odor of staleness registers as a miasma of despair and decay. I hustle to load the groceries and navigate the rickety cart and my chair-bound customer into the tiny elevator as mute observers in tank tops loiter in the lobby.

We get to her floor, and she begins to sob hysterically. “Can you push me to my door?” she gasps. “I’m just so tired.” She keeps repeating the phrase, as if ashamed of her fatigue. I tell her that it’s no problem, and it really isn’t. But she continues to cry and apologize as I wheel her down the long corridor. We get to a battered door, which I unlock for her, as her wrists are too weak to manage the feat. TO BE CONTINUED...












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RECENT COMMENTS ON “The obese old woman at Fred Meyer has a bad hip and a wheelchair...”

5

My surfing error, NC. 74 comments on "Mommie Fiercest." Think the NY Entertainer had over 500, or somewhere else.

jeff taylor, Jul 18th, 2008 5:02pm
6

i feel sad for her. i use a powerchair and it hard enough to ask for help. but at times people do help out of pity not for being human. i see how people look at me. so, at time i stay at home.

p.a.m, Jul 19th, 2008 2:31am
7

Roll on, p.a.m. What you said, you said beautifully and simply. Your last para is very near the soul of poetry. You are alter-abled in a very special way; you write from the heart.

jeff taylor, Jul 19th, 2008 2:37pm
8

I don't think of the comments section as a barometer of popularity/quality. The column I get complimented on the most had something like one or two comments, and the same goes for others that people ...

Night Cabbie 3, Jul 20th, 2008 2:26am
 
 
 





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