Wapsi Square Forum

Parents have had the same thing happen, except the clinic is in Wisconsin.

Just booked Kate for her first shot at WalMart.

Unfortunately NOT the "Neighborhood Market" the back side of which pretty well butts against the front of our complex, but at the "Supercenter", which is roughly 3.5 miles away.

Oh, the horror! Having to drive almost FOUR MILES to get vaccinated!

First World Problems

Let me tell you about 1st World Problems (not to thread-jack or anything), trying to put together a Video Conf. setup for a local non-profit and I can't hardly find anything actually on a shelf.

'Two Day Delivery' from Walmart it is then...

So Kate got the shot.

I had the brilliant idea of not using her wheelchair to get her into the store - going in and grabbing an electric scooter/cart and bringing it to the car instead.

Worked okay, overall - but the controller is a double-ended lever and you squeeze the right side to go forward and the left side to go back.

Unless you had a stroke and don't have much use of your right hand, in which you push the left side forward to go forward ... while also steering with that hand.

We made it, though, and she got shot.

Yeah, that's the standard setup.

The one time I encountered a different setup, I had endless trouble.

--FreeFlier

FreeFlier wrote: ↑Sun Apr 11, 2021 10:41 pm Yeah, that's the standard setup.

The one time I encountered a different setup, I had endless trouble.

--FreeFlier

Oughta be a switch to reverse the controls, like you can reverse the buttons on a mouse if you're left-handed.

{I am, but i learnt to use a mouse on a shared computer.}

Yeah, it would make sense for those carts to have a switch to swap the controls, but they don't, and if they did I suspect it would confuse more people than it helps.

I have to acknowledge that apparently I'm more ambidextrous* than most people, but I've driven one of those things left-handed once or twice. Depending on details of the controls it can be easier to put the left hand on the right-hand side, or to grab the far side of the steering mechanism so you're again squeezing the handle - except with your thumb instead of your fingers.

I don't need the carts myself, but I am frequently out with one person who thinks she does, and occasionally with another person who definitely does.

* I don't write equally badly with both hands, but close enough that it could just be lack of practice left-handed. I do pick things up left-handed quite often - and occasionally with my left foot. And for several years I used my computer mice right-handed at home and left-handed at work.

I am pretty hard left-brained, apparently. The right hand and eye are quite dominant.

But I dislocated the right shoulder more than 25 years ago, and could not use the right arm for a while. Still keep cash and cards on the left and grab things from cabinets with the left hand because of that.

I was using a mobility scooter today, and realized that when I want to use my left hand, I push the left-hand lever forward with my thumb.

The other control setup that I've seen is a thumb lever on each side . . . push the right one to go forward, push the left one for reverse.

There's a third too, which I can't remember except that it gave me trouble.

--FreeFlier

The ones i see in stores have a sort of teeter-totter control - pivoted in the middle, pull back on the right {or forward on the left} to go forward, vice-versa for back.

AnotherFairportfan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:57 pmThe ones i see in stores have a sort of teeter-totter control - pivoted in the middle, pull back on the right {or forward on the left} to go forward, vice-versa for back.

Yes, probably inside a loop-type handle. That's the common one, and what I was using yesterday.

I can't remember where I encountered the one with two thumb levers, just that it was a long time ago . . . and the weird one that gave me trouble was, I think, even longer ago.

edit: the thumb-lever one may have been the one I used at work when I tore up my knee in 2008 . . . there's no telling how old it was, since it was a company-owned loaner. I only used it for two-three months, but I needed it because the plant was huge.

--FreeFlier

Most mobility scooters have a back-and-forth control for forwards and reverse. My wife’s has a speed control knob that adjusts how fast the scooter goes. Most shopping cart scooters don’t have that - for obvious reasons.

Yeah, the shopping scooters are pretty detuned . . . for obvious reasons.

The company ones we had weren't . . . some of them moved pretty fast on the highest speed.

One of my co-workers had surgery that had him off work for months . . . I suggested to the boss that we should retrieve his scooter until he returned. The boss agreed, so I retrieved it . . . and used it a bit, whereupon I found that the co-worker was correct that it was slow and short-ranged. So . . . we had it sent out for the "annual" maintenance. (We usually didn't do it, even though the manual said it should be serviced every year.)

The service company cleaned it, lubricated everything, and replace the batteries.

When we got it back I tried it again . . . Much improved. I used it enough to fully form the batteries, then parked it, using and charging it periodically . . . when we got the word he was coming back to work, I put it back where he'd parked it . . . with a caution sign warning him to be careful because we'd had it serviced and it was much peppier. I also parked it with the speed knob well down . . .

He told me that he didn't think it was much if any better . . . until he realized where the speed control was set! Then he was glad I'd warned him . . .

--FreeFlier