Absolutely Surreal Misunderstandings
May. 28th, 2025 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutA while back, when I started posting stuff on FB Marketplace, I knew about Buy Nothing groups, and I guessed by the name that they were inspired by if not directly connected to Buy Nothing Day. Decades ago, I subscribed for years to Adbusters, so I definitely had some relevant background knowledge. A variety of people suggested that I posted stuff in my local Buy Nothing Group, but I was reluctant because I knew the volume of stuff I was moving was unlikely to move quickly enough in a local group. I checked out my local group after joining, and it was … sleepy.
But what really got me was the weird misunderstandings of Buy Nothing groups. A. in California had no idea it involved people giving and receiving. I. in Washington assumed it was barter. I don’t even remember J.’s misunderstanding right now because it won’t stick in my brain it was so unhinged.
In the process of assisting C. and H., I’ve run into a lot of expected examples of bad decision making (nixing Harmony at Hershey because of a negative review Somewhere Online about Homeland. And then a few days later, _selecting_ Homeland, out of a list of three provided by someone else who is even more skeptical of C.’s decision to isolate than I am. Whatever). There was some discussion of a transport wheelchair. I was like, aha! I can help with that! I bought one for my sister. I got all the info, and the PT/OT folks nixed it as unnecessary / unhelpful. Then later, they decide to buy the twice as heavy but more typical transport wheelchair (and by, “they decide to buy”, I mean, they picked it and I paid for it). I thought about pointing out this thing weighs double what the other one does, but I decided not to, purely because I wanted to find out how this turned out.
I also paid for the van transport for C. from rehab to respite. The transport wheelchair was so she could be wheeled from the van to her room at Homeland, or so I was told by H., and stay in that chair until her comfy recliner (yes, I bought that too) was set up for her, if it was not already). However — and here is the misunderstanding — C. had it in her head that she was going to ride _in the wheelchair_ while _in the van_. Obviously not. It’s a lightweight folding chair. How fucking dangerous would that be (answer: extremely fucking dangerous!). Driver was a sweetie and more or less lifted her up into the seat in the van, which is exactly what I would expect and is also one of the reasons that I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at lifts that are more portable / cheaper / broadly deployable, because while C. probably comes in at 90 pounds fully clothed and soaking wet, a lot of people riding in these kinds of vans weight twice that or more (I would be in the “or more” category, for example).
I decided to go take a quick look around to answer the question of: what kinds of wheelchairs can you ride in while in a van? And the answer is, don’t fucking do that! But if you do do that, you’re doing it because you need a positioning wheelchair, which C. very much does not need. The relevant standard is a voluntary one, WC19. And reading it, it’s obviously complied with only very occasionally and it’s a hopelessly inadequate standard anyway.
It’s one thing to latch the wheelchair down in a full size bus. It’s wholly another thing to expect to do that in a van. Don’t do that if you can possibly avoid that!
I spent some time in therapy today trying to understand where all these surreal misunderstandings are coming from, and it’s one thing to say, oh, there was some kind of confusion or miscommunication. And sure, there always is. But I’m also increasingly convinced that people have no fucking clue how things work, but they believe they understand how something works, and that gap is a killer. Literally, sometimes.
Anyway. “Transport wheelchair” means a lightweight wheelchair that you can fold up and put in the car. Or it means a wheelchair that is pushed, instead of powered. But it most definitely does not mean one that is WC19 compliant for sitting in while riding in a moving vehicle.
But what really got me was the weird misunderstandings of Buy Nothing groups. A. in California had no idea it involved people giving and receiving. I. in Washington assumed it was barter. I don’t even remember J.’s misunderstanding right now because it won’t stick in my brain it was so unhinged.
In the process of assisting C. and H., I’ve run into a lot of expected examples of bad decision making (nixing Harmony at Hershey because of a negative review Somewhere Online about Homeland. And then a few days later, _selecting_ Homeland, out of a list of three provided by someone else who is even more skeptical of C.’s decision to isolate than I am. Whatever). There was some discussion of a transport wheelchair. I was like, aha! I can help with that! I bought one for my sister. I got all the info, and the PT/OT folks nixed it as unnecessary / unhelpful. Then later, they decide to buy the twice as heavy but more typical transport wheelchair (and by, “they decide to buy”, I mean, they picked it and I paid for it). I thought about pointing out this thing weighs double what the other one does, but I decided not to, purely because I wanted to find out how this turned out.
I also paid for the van transport for C. from rehab to respite. The transport wheelchair was so she could be wheeled from the van to her room at Homeland, or so I was told by H., and stay in that chair until her comfy recliner (yes, I bought that too) was set up for her, if it was not already). However — and here is the misunderstanding — C. had it in her head that she was going to ride _in the wheelchair_ while _in the van_. Obviously not. It’s a lightweight folding chair. How fucking dangerous would that be (answer: extremely fucking dangerous!). Driver was a sweetie and more or less lifted her up into the seat in the van, which is exactly what I would expect and is also one of the reasons that I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at lifts that are more portable / cheaper / broadly deployable, because while C. probably comes in at 90 pounds fully clothed and soaking wet, a lot of people riding in these kinds of vans weight twice that or more (I would be in the “or more” category, for example).
I decided to go take a quick look around to answer the question of: what kinds of wheelchairs can you ride in while in a van? And the answer is, don’t fucking do that! But if you do do that, you’re doing it because you need a positioning wheelchair, which C. very much does not need. The relevant standard is a voluntary one, WC19. And reading it, it’s obviously complied with only very occasionally and it’s a hopelessly inadequate standard anyway.
It’s one thing to latch the wheelchair down in a full size bus. It’s wholly another thing to expect to do that in a van. Don’t do that if you can possibly avoid that!
I spent some time in therapy today trying to understand where all these surreal misunderstandings are coming from, and it’s one thing to say, oh, there was some kind of confusion or miscommunication. And sure, there always is. But I’m also increasingly convinced that people have no fucking clue how things work, but they believe they understand how something works, and that gap is a killer. Literally, sometimes.
Anyway. “Transport wheelchair” means a lightweight wheelchair that you can fold up and put in the car. Or it means a wheelchair that is pushed, instead of powered. But it most definitely does not mean one that is WC19 compliant for sitting in while riding in a moving vehicle.