“What type wheelchair?”
The Palma airport access desk assistant (who I expect speaks the best english) says to me. I stand looking at her in silence.
You see, I can walk. I walked up to this desk. I had just been to check-in, also on foot. I can get around as long as it’s not too far, I just can’t stand and queue. On the holiday I am returning from I walked 18,000 steps one day to go and see a castle! I then couldn’t walk further than the pool the next day, but that’s the nature of fibromyalgia.
That all makes sense, right? The problem is; I don’t know how to say the above in Spanish.
“Just, standard?”
And there starts Caroline’s wonderful and totally fault-free accessibility treatment at a quarter to midnight on a Saturday in October in a Spanish airport. Around the corner comes an employee with a wheelchair, I’m sat down, and we’re off down some side door that I wasn’t 100% sure wasn’t to some room where they lock up the difficult tourists who refuse to learn the language.
We had flown out of Liverpool John Lennon Airport the week previously, where the delightful Scouse staff had ascertained quickly that I could get myself to the gate and even up the steps on to the plane; I just needed a tiny bit of help if I suddenly got worse. I wish I’d taken their offer of a wheelchair to avoid the queues at security – but I would have missed out on duty free – and so after about 20 minutes wait I was patted down by a stern looking woman who looked at me funny when I had to use my hands to lift my leg up on the block for her to wave her detector wand over it. She looked at me even more funny when the wand went off with the pins in my hair; but I don’t know anyone whose hair looks like pin curls on its own, so what was she expecting?
“I can stand up to go through the metal detector.” Once again my Spanish didn’t cover ‘what use is a metal detector if I’m in a metal wheelchair?’ I don’t know if you’re familiar with Adam Hills’ comedy routine surrounding flying with his fake foot and security officers waving him through easily so as to not cause offence? I don’t know if that’s what was happening, but they spent a lot less time on me than they had in England. I don’t think they even scanned my tablet computer with our carry-ons; something we only noticed when my best friend and travel companion Laura had to dart back for it.
“The old conundrum that a lot of wheelchair users face, do I stand up and have people think I’m a fake?”
I’m thrilled to arrive at the gate – well rested in my wheeled throne – because it’s now gone midnight and my brain cannot conjure up any more Spanish than the word “gracias” in the most Scouse accent I’ve had since we left Liverpool. Laura leaves me with the bags and heads back for Duty Free; I’m not exactly going anywhere right now.
The only problem I have now is that the people who are currently waiting at the gate with me are not any of the people that saw me walk up to check in or to the access desk. They’ve seen a 20-something who is clearly too warm, because after 8 days she’s still not used to Spain’s temperature, be brought to the gate by airport staff who 100% are used to the heat. This 20-something needs a drink, and is now debating in her head the old conundrum that a lot of wheelchair users face, do I stand up and have people think I’m a fake, or do I self propel over to the vending machine?
When I do get over there, the machine seems to take issue with my euro coins, spitting them out on to the floor in a strop. And folks, here you will learn why I should have just gotten out and walked. Because, as I bent down to retrieve them, I fell over forwards; tipping myself out of the assistive device that Palma airport had so graciously let me use and only avoiding being a puddle on the floor when the stroppy vending machine gave me something to grab on to. I have never seen tired holidaymakers on their way back to Liverpool move quite so fast in my life.
Recovered it, accepted I wasn’t going to get a drink, and let a lovely man wheel me back to my bags. Laura was none the wiser when she got back.
