Did you ever call one of those "report me/comment on my driving" phone numbers that you see (at least here in the US) on certain delivery vehicles? I've seen them for years. Today, i actually called the toll-free number to report a Brinks armored truck which infuriated me yesterday. Here's a suggestion - should you ever want to do it, take notes. LOTS of notes! I did note down the vehicle's special ID number and the intersection it was parked at/near. But not the licence plate (that was ok). They also asked - get this - the color of the vehicle and whether it was heading N/S/E/W. Yikes!

As I travel every street of my city on a scooter (and/or wheelchair in the future), I'm really really familiar with sidewalks, curb cuts and streets. The corner here was repaved a while back and is a lovely place to cross over. Except for the friggin Brinks truck which blocked the crosswalk. Now of course iknow they want to park close to their drop-off, pick-up location but i'm sorry. You DON'T BLOCK CROSSWALKS WITH YOUR GODDAMN VEHICLE. The thing was half in the crosswalk. Because if its height, it was not possible to see the "walk/don't walk" signal and no, I'm not dumb, if there had been one going east/west, yes i would have relied on it, but there isn't at this intersection. I couldn't see the walk light and had to go way around the damn truck to get to the curb cut.

this was after i'd gone to the post office where they had apparently repaved the sidewalk in front of the door. In order to protect the new concrete, there was a thick board leading to the door. GREAT job. Never occured to anyone that a wheelchair, or any wheeled thingy might not be able to hop up onto a board. I managed but like so many other annoyances, it wasn't easy and it caused some discomfort coming down OFF the thing with a bump. And when i mentioned it, and asked that they bring it to the attention of the guy who put it down, they had a hard time getting my point.

And please do not ever tell me "oh, it will be gone soon" as this is somewhat akin to "I'm only there for a minute" when someone illegally parks in a handicapped spot. I don't care - I'm not in the scooter fro only a minute. Most of us aren't disabled for only a minute. Get your ASS OUT OF THE PARKING SPOT and WALK a few frigging feet. If you can't, GET A PARKING PERMIT FOR THE SPOT. The woman who so graciously<\i> offered to move her fucking car FROM THE handicapped spot on Sunday, and who did not get that a) she should not have been there to start with and b) it was a little fucking LATE by the time I'd already gotten out of the car a few feet away seemed to think I should thank her for offering to move her illegally parked car. No. And fuck you.

Jesus. The post office still hasn't put in an automated door. During LCC when we had a post office box, I twice went on weekends where I needed one hand to turn the key to the lobby, one to open the door and a third to drive the scooter. i'm there at least 1x a week and every time I'm there, so are moms with strollers, shippers with big boxes to mail, other folks in wheelchairs, all of whom would benefit from an automated door.

I'm not sure if i'll hear back from the Brinks folks. i'm on a clean-up, fix-up, cancel, wipe out, trash, dump,roll today as my first phone call was to cancel the newspaper (they brought me the wrong one, for the fifth and FINAL time) (I so love starting the day like this) and then to the toll-free folks. Next, it's to see about the automated door then my ISP about the massive increase in spam and my "shell" account - I dunno either, I just do as i'm told here. Oh, I'm also sending an email nominating someone as "vendor of the week" for our "homeless" newspaper "Real Change" so it's not ALL whine - gotta balance out the karma somehow so i'll try to do some positive as well. And bless Sally Powers, whose "that was a really good review" email really brightened the day (a day which is supposedly bringing BIG WINDS to the area. Meep!)

Sigh. To use a word I discovered months ago (see blog entry of March 17) this day is just so damn flammulated.....