THE MANIPULATOR

The controller is always the controller — right up to the end. It was Maria in all her anguished glory working her magic behind the scenes. I call it manipulation, but she has a way of framing it as help.

I wandered in on her and a group sitting around the table trying to organize car rides for our meal out today. It didn’t seem to matter that most of those people had been whining about the Housing Association making the van available to us for a longer outing and that they had all signed up to ride n the van to take us to the best fish and chips eatery in the area. Humongous pieces of fish!

At that time, I was trying to explain that we needed that van to be full or there may not be another time to use the van. We need their van because it will carry wheelchairs. I thought everything was settled and that group had agreed to ride the van. Wrong!

I stayed away from people for the weekend. My granddaughter came and helped me get my place cleaned up. I love having her around. But at coffee this morning the manipulation to take cars was back on. Maria calculated that there were at least twelve taking the van. Yes, but she was trying to get most of them to switch to cars. I questioned her again and she said she was on track to ride the van. Wrong.

At time to go, the big van was in front loading Chas (a big man), and I brought my van around to take another wheelchair resident. Our driver was nervous just getting Chas loaded. She tried several times to get the lift to go up and nothing happened. I prayed silently and the lift when up. Whew! Two others got in the van. After checking it out, I went to the crowd at the door just hanging out and guess what. You guessed it. Maria was organizing cars saying there was not enough room for everyone in the van. I began talking over her and said we have room for ten more in the van. They stood there and looked at me with their eyes saying: ”Are you crazy?” Well no. I don’t think so. I just wanted the Housing Association to be willing to use the van again in the future for us.

I need ten more people for the van. The driver asked Maria if they should go in the van. I didn’t wait for Maria to answer I said take the van. Let them pay the gas. Finally all moved and boarded. There was still one empty seat.

The rest of the day went great. There was one waitress who handled 22 of us in a separate room and another dozen or more in the dining room. We were in and out of there in 70 minutes. I thought that was terrific. Naturally there were some complaints about slowness, but after I stuff a whole piece of boiling hot fish down their throat, the complaining stopped. The ambulance arrived quickly to take the two women away. Then it was a better afternoon.