I call him The Orange Man because he wore an orange shirt and an orange baseball cap. He peddled an orange bike and there was a rope attached to the back of it from which he pulled an orange wagon. The wagon was full of what appeared to be random scraps of cardboard.
It was the 4th of July. As I exited my cripple van via the ramp deployed from the side door he stopped peddling and stared at me. He said something about how he used to own a cripple van like mine, even though he wasn’t in a wheelchair. He said he put 50 thousand miles on it and it served him well.
And then he said that his nephew (or maybe was his cousin or son) was interested in designing wheelchairs when he was a kid but now he’s working for Tesla.
And I almost said, “So he works for Elon Musk, huh? But then again, don’t we all?”
But The Orange Man struck me as a Fox News type of guy. So instead, I just said “Oh.”
Then The Orange Man said, “Well I’m sorry to tell you but your wheelchair is forever out of balance. Because no two tubes can be shaped exactly the same.”
“Why not?” I said.
“Because tubes have memories,” he said. “Just like you have a memory. I bet you remember when you were straight and strong and you could walk.”
“Not really,” I said. “I’ve always been this way.”
“Well I feel for you,” he said.
“No need,” I said. And that’s when I thought the best thing to do was to just get the hell out of there, So I spun around and left.
But then I heard his voice coming from behind me, shouting, “Well at least you’re free!”
I was right. He really was a Fox News type of guy.
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