Not wanting to make a big deal, but DOORS are our only way in and out; this can be frustrating. An incident this morning at Sweetpeas Restaurant in Auburn started me thinking.
Let the record reflect, it is a great restaurant with great food and great service, with plenty of room to move around in my power wheelchair. Being of sound mind, I chose the freshly baked cinnamon roll and ate every bit with no regrets. I didn’t share one bite; it was scrumptious.
However, there was one problem…the bathroom door.
Over the past two years, since I was officially declared disabled, I have not let bathroom doors hinder my entry. However, with all honesty, I will ask for help with those doors and do so frequently, but sometimes I want to go to the bathroom by myself, on my own, with no help from anyone. Is that too much to ask? Many times the doors are a struggle but not necessarily an obstacle, today it was an almost obstacle.
The Sweetpeas Restaurant bathroom door was excessively, preposterously, difficult to open; I almost gave up and thought I would have to ask for help, but I was determined. Powering up my wheelchair, I gunned my way into the bathroom, knowing I was going to have to reverse the process to fight my way out. It is tricky to push a difficult door with one hand and steer the bike with the other. It is not as easy as it sounds. There was a hydraulic door closer on the back of the door, being the highly rated mechanical engineer that I am, I thought there must be a way to loosen the spring (?) making it easier to open the door. I did mention this to one of the employees.
This week, Cattlemen’s Restaurant in Roseville moved to the top of my favorite bathroom list. They have a new door that is super light and easy to open. An added feature at Cattlemen’s is that if the disabled stall door is open, you get a straight shot right into the stall from the hallway. What a blessing.
The prize for the most surprisingly difficult bathroom to access goes to a medical facility, Sutter Cancer Center on L Street. The bathroom on the first floor has two strikes: a heavy door and a narrow entryway, which makes it challenging to navigate without bumping into the door jambs. To be fair, last month it looked as though they were doing some remodeling — maybe installing the automatic doors. Here’s hoping.
My favorite doors are those found in many movie theaters and airports. There are no doors, just passageways. My next favorite doors are those with push buttons for disabled people; they open wide, like we are royalty.
There are many other user-friendly bathrooms, but almost all public restrooms have heavy doors. To be “fair and balanced”, as they say on Fox News, Chico’s and Coldwater Creek have heavy doors as well, but my chauffeur graciously gets out of the van and opens those doors for me. If my lap is filled with purchases, the sales staff will let me out of the store. I have never tried it without making a purchase, and I am not going to take the risk.
As the Life Coach: What doors get in your way, what are you doing about it?
–Susan