I couldn’t admit I needed a wheelchair. Until I went to the zoo.

It was my birthday and I wanted to see penguins. I’d been on crutches for a million months at this point, so I knew to PLAN for this outing. When you’re on crutches, you PLAN every inch of every trip, because every step is sacred. You have only so many in you per day. You ration steps like bacon in 1941.

So I plan the route. My partner and I get to the zoo, and I collapse on a bench. Despite taking the least-walking route, I’m exhausted already. My partner asks if I want to rest on this bench for a while. I don’t. I want to see animals.

We trek around otter ponds and camel pens and meerkat mounds. Thirty minutes later, I drag myself to a picnic table. I let my crutches clatter to the ground and drop my head on the table.

‘We can call it a day if you want,’ Partner says.

‘We haven’t even seen penguins.’

‘We can come back,’ reasons Partner.

F*ck reason. ‘It’s my birthday and I want to see ALL the animals!’ I’ve been looking forward to this. You don’t get out much when you’re disabled in a pandemic in the wettest spring on record since 1967. As Partner helps me crutch over to the toilets*, we see a stall with wheelchairs for rent. ‘That’s what I need,’ I joke.

Partner asks, ‘Shall I get you one?’ He’s not joking.

I snort-laugh. ‘I don’t need a wheelchair.’

When I hobble back to the picnic table, I’m panting. Navigating a public toilet on crutches is surprisingly exhausting.

‘Let’s see some animals!’ I wheeze.

‘Umm. Can you walk?’ asks Partner.

‘No. But I –’

‘Want to see animals, I know. Let’s sit for five minutes. I’m tired.’ He’s not. He’s a lovely, lovely liar. We sit. My hip aches. My back throbs. My hands are blistered from the crutch handles.

…

‘Maybe I should rent a wheelchair.’

‘Great!’ says Partner, hopping up to get one.

‘No! I don’t know! I feel weird.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m not a person-who-needs-a-wheelchair.’ Which is bullshit. I’m a person who can’t walk; I’m exactly who needs a wheelchair.

Ultimately the lure of penguins persuades me. We rent a wheelchair. I worry they’ll ask me for my Person-Who-Needs-A-Wheelchair ID card, to prove my disabled-ness. They only want a £20 deposit, refundable on return of the chair. I’m relieved at how easy it is. (I also wonder who’s stealing zoo wheelchairs in such numbers that a deposit policy was necessary.)

I get in the chair, there in the zoo courtyard, and I’m immediately aware of two things. 1) People look at you when you’re in a wheelchair. 2) My arms are super weak. I was a competitive figure skater; my body strength is – was – in my legs. My arms were just for waving around to music. Now I’m trying to use these flabby chicken wings to propel my entire bodyweight, plus a metal chair, up a cobbled slope. I let Partner push me.

People joke that the truest test of a relationship is the first time you go to IKEA as a couple. These people haven’t tried navigating a multi-level, Indian-market-themed, Asiatic Lion exhibit in the first nine minutes of one of them getting in a wheelchair. Partner’s asking me if he’s pushing too fast or too slow or too lurchy. I’m asking him to turn me 37 degrees north-northeast so I can see a lemur. (I said northeast! What? What!?) Verbal communication is hard between the pusher and pushee. The pushee’s mouth faces away from the pusher’s ears. The pusher’s ears are two feet above the pushee’s mouth. And, because of COVID, we’re both wearing masks. So there’s a lot of shouting and repeating. It scares the lemurs.

Is the London Zoo accessible? Yes. Is it better on foot? Also, yes. You can’t get as close to the animals or see as well over the railings. If you’re wheelchair-bound, you can’t enter the spider monkey house. Because I’m not 100% reliant on a chair (at least for a few steps), I was able to park my wheelchair at the door and limp around the monkey house on crutches/Partner’s arm. But if you’re totally reliant on a chair, you can’t go in and see tiny monkeys eat lettuce. Which is a shame because it’s damn cute. Instead, you must wait outside with the prams*. Apparently the monkeys are attracted to the metal and will take apart your wheelchair or pram with their creepy little hands. Somethings just can’t be accessible, I guess.

At closing time, we return the chair. Back on my crutches, I stagger to the exit, half-carried by Partner. ‘We should’ve stolen the wheelchair,’ I say. ‘A new one’s going to be way more than £20.’

‘It had ‘’ZOO’’ stencilled on it,’ reasons Partner.

‘Who cares?’

That’s how you know you need wheelchair. When you consider stealing one from a zoo.

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British to American translation:

* Citymapper = Google Maps

* TFL = Transport for London, i.e. website for the tube

* Lift = elevator

* MI5 = FBI

* Toilets = restroom

* Prams = strollers

MissAbility: Zoo