September 10, 2015. San Antonio, Texas. Wheel Chair War.

For awhile I thought it might get nasty.  Certainly it was interesting.   My observation has been that the number of people using wheelchairs in airports has increased dramatically, or perhaps now that I must use a wheel chair, I only notice.  The airlines accommodate the handicapped.  They provide the chair plus an attendant to push you from place to place.  The airports are well organized to look after those who can not walk.  The attendants use iPads to communicate as to their location and for their instructions.  The attendants are polite and helpful and most were not born in the US.  They are paid minimum wage plus tips.  They are extremely helpful.

Our attendants rolled us up to security.  We were put into a long line of other wheelchairs all waiting to clear the security check.  A lady in a wheelchair three ahead of us started to complain loudly about the long line.  "Wheelchair people should have priority", she said in her loud New Jersey accent and she called over the boss, who was wearing a jacket.  He apologized for the wait but he told her that she already had priority being in their own line.  Muttering from the lady.

After a few minutes wait she again called the boss over and complained that regular people were also in line.   The boss explained that the other folks were all with a person in a wheelchair.   "They should go through the regular line", said she.  "They are slowing us down".  More muttering.

 While our line was slowly moving forward,  a wheelchair rolled beside us in an empty line.    That was too much for the disgruntled lady.  She loudly called to the attendant to get to the back of the line and then loudly called the boss.  "It is not fair.  They are jumping in line ahead of us", said the lady.  I thought it might get really nasty.  The attendant in the wrong line stopped in her track.  Once the nasty lady got ahead, the other attendants let the chair into our proper line.  I did laugh.  The moment I saw the attendant wheel down the empty line I knew we were going to have trouble.   It could have been a real wheelchair war, but the attendants were polite.