The Twelve Labors of Gimpocles

I floated a tentative travel plan by my traveling companion last night and this morning, so we'll see how that goes.

I have a bone to pick with Holiday Inn. I'm thrilled that they are making an effort to provide accessible rooms; nothing is more demoralizing than realizing that you won't be able to bathe properly for the duration of your stay because your wheelchair doesn't fit through the door and even if it did, there is no shower bench. It's a blow to your morale to realize that you're going to be marinating in your own body oils and dirt for three days while complete strangers side-eye you and judge you a filthy, slovenly urchin who doesn't give a rip about your hygiene. It makes you timid and frustrated and even angry. So to even have the option of a proper shower is a wondrous thing.

So, why, oh, why do most of their accessible rooms only offer one bed? Is it a matter of maximizing the open floor space for those who need large wheelchairs? If so, I can certainly understand this thought process. Accessible toilets aren't much good if you can't get to them. But by limiting wheelchair users to one bed, they make it exceedingly difficult to travel with a friend. Roomie has been my woobie and caregiver for thirteen years, and we have slept in the same bed for twelve, and so he is hardly inconvenienced by the fact that we must share, though I'm sure he often wishes that my heat-seeking ass missile would stop butting him in the stomach or crotch at regular intervals. It's par for his natural course.

But not everyone is that comfortable sharing a bed. I like my traveling companion very much, but I don't want to share a bed with her, and given her last bed-sharing adventure, I'm sure the feeling is mutual. I flail and kick and flop in my sleep, and because my limbs often fall asleep, I'm constantly shifting my position and jerking on the blankets. Apparently, I snore softly and make weebling sounds in my sleep. This a terrible sleep environment for someone unaccustomed to my physical idiosyncrasies, and I would feel terrible if my traveling companion woke up the next morning looking like Taz from Looney Tunes, with tousled hair, baggy, bloodshot eyes, and the personality of a rabid badger with piles.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, which states that all cripples are lonely, friendless shut-ins who never leave the house and stew in their unrelenting bitterness, many of us do have friends, or would very much like to make them, and offering accessible rooms with only one choice of bed stifles our ability to travel and connect with others. It is possible to have two beds and an accessible room; I know because I found several on offer by searching the websites of various hotels, including a Hampton Inn not far from the Holiday Inn. It was twenty dollars cheaper to boot.

Which brings me to my next complaint. Why do so many hotels add ten to twenty dollars to the price of the room if it's accessible? The Holiday Inn in NYC tacked on seventy-five dollars per night just because I asked for an accessible room. I've never seen any difference between an accessible and non-accessible room save for the wider doorways and the handrails in the bathroom. If you're lucky, then you get a roll-in shower, but more often than not, you get a standard tub with a wobbly shower bench in it. Sometimes. In NYC, I had the swank shower, but no bench on which to sit, and no one could be assed to find one, either, so I spent three days building a formidable funk, until I finally gritted my teeth through a miserable standing shower because I was afraid that Amtrak wouldn't let me board if I didn't. That's it. Those are the only accommodations. Most of the time, you can't reach the desk because the bed is too close to the bureau, and you can't reach the sink because you can't pull up to it for the cabinets in the way. The rooms aren't bigger. Essentially, when the hotels add to the price of an accessible room, they are charging a cripple surcharge, and I honestly wonder if they do it simply because they know most disabled patrons won't complain for fear of losing access altogether, and because they suspect that disabled guests will damage the room by doing something gimpy, like peeing on the carpet or leaving our adult diapers in the chintzy wastebaskets for the underpaid housekeeping staff to find. Because everyone knows that those dirty, drooling spastics just can't control their bodily functions.

Roomie thinks I should bring my laptop on the trip, but I'm not sure I should. It has a habit of automatically searching for the nearest available wireless network and connecting without asking permission from me. Usually, this isn't a problem, as my laptop is a foot from my router and thus recognizes it before any others, but if I bring it on the trip, God knows what networks it might find. I've tried to turn off the option to seek out networks automatically, but I can't find it in my network options.

Plus, I don't want it to be stolen from the hotel or crushed in transit. Will the battery drain if I just turn it off, unplug it, and leave it behind for two weeks? What is the best way to travel with a laptop and avoid theft by unscrupulous hotel staff? To avoid packet sniffers and virus attacks when connected to a hotel network? My research mentioned establishing a VPN, but I don't have the software for that.

The Twelve Labors of Gimpocles

I floated a tentative travel plan by my traveling companion last night and this morning, so we'll see how that goes.

I have a bone to pick with Holiday Inn. I'm thrilled that they are making an effort to provide accessible rooms; nothing is more demoralizing than realizing that you won't be able to bathe properly for the duration of your stay because your wheelchair doesn't fit through the door and even if it did, there is no shower bench. It's a blow to your morale to realize that you're going to be marinating in your own body oils and dirt for three days while complete strangers side-eye you and judge you a filthy, slovenly urchin who doesn't give a rip about your hygiene. It makes you timid and frustrated and even angry. So to even have the option of a proper shower is a wondrous thing.

So, why, oh, why do most of their accessible rooms only offer one bed? Is it a matter of maximizing the open floor space for those who need large wheelchairs? If so, I can certainly understand this thought process. Accessible toilets aren't much good if you can't get to them. But by limiting wheelchair users to one bed, they make it exceedingly difficult to travel with a friend. Roomie has been my woobie and caregiver for thirteen years, and we have slept in the same bed for twelve, and so he is hardly inconvenienced by the fact that we must share, though I'm sure he often wishes that my heat-seeking ass missile would stop butting him in the stomach or crotch at regular intervals. It's par for his natural course.

But not everyone is that comfortable sharing a bed. I like my traveling companion very much, but I don't want to share a bed with her, and given her last bed-sharing adventure, I'm sure the feeling is mutual. I flail and kick and flop in my sleep, and because my limbs often fall asleep, I'm constantly shifting my position and jerking on the blankets. Apparently, I snore softly and make weebling sounds in my sleep. This a terrible sleep environment for someone unaccustomed to my physical idiosyncrasies, and I would feel terrible if my traveling companion woke up the next morning looking like Taz from Looney Tunes, with tousled hair, baggy, bloodshot eyes, and the personality of a rabid badger with piles.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, which states that all cripples are lonely, friendless shut-ins who never leave the house and stew in their unrelenting bitterness, many of us do have friends, or would very much like to make them, and offering accessible rooms with only one choice of bed stifles our ability to travel and connect with others. It is possible to have two beds and an accessible room; I know because I found several on offer by searching the websites of various hotels, including a Hampton Inn not far from the Holiday Inn. It was twenty dollars cheaper to boot.

Which brings me to my next complaint. Why do so many hotels add ten to twenty dollars to the price of the room if it's accessible? The Holiday Inn in NYC tacked on seventy-five dollars per night just because I asked for an accessible room. I've never seen any difference between an accessible and non-accessible room save for the wider doorways and the handrails in the bathroom. If you're lucky, then you get a roll-in shower, but more often than not, you get a standard tub with a wobbly shower bench in it. Sometimes. In NYC, I had the swank shower, but no bench on which to sit, and no one could be assed to find one, either, so I spent three days building a formidable funk, until I finally gritted my teeth through a miserable standing shower because I was afraid that Amtrak wouldn't let me board if I didn't. That's it. Those are the only accommodations. Most of the time, you can't reach the desk because the bed is too close to the bureau, and you can't reach the sink because you can't pull up to it for the cabinets in the way. The rooms aren't bigger. Essentially, when the hotels add to the price of an accessible room, they are charging a cripple surcharge, and I honestly wonder if they do it simply because they know most disabled patrons won't complain for fear of losing access altogether, and because they suspect that disabled guests will damage the room by doing something gimpy, like peeing on the carpet or leaving our adult diapers in the chintzy wastebaskets for the underpaid housekeeping staff to find. Because everyone knows that those dirty, drooling spastics just can't control their bodily functions.

Roomie thinks I should bring my laptop on the trip, but I'm not sure I should. It has a habit of automatically searching for the nearest available wireless network and connecting without asking permission from me. Usually, this isn't a problem, as my laptop is a foot from my router and thus recognizes it before any others, but if I bring it on the trip, God knows what networks it might find. I've tried to turn off the option to seek out networks automatically, but I can't find it in my network options.

Plus, I don't want it to be stolen from the hotel or crushed in transit. Will the battery drain if I just turn it off, unplug it, and leave it behind for two weeks? What is the best way to travel with a laptop and avoid theft by unscrupulous hotel staff? To avoid packet sniffers and virus attacks when connected to a hotel network? My research mentioned establishing a VPN, but I don't have the software for that.