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morning.
    Bethlehem is home to approximately 70,000 people, so it’s a pretty sizable town. Our yearly Halloween parade is far from a big deal for most people, but I would estimate that a few thousand people line the sidewalks of Main Street to watch it each year. My family had taken my brother and me to watch the parade in years past, with the highlight always being the candy that people in the parade threw to the onlookers. I was excited to be the one with the power to throw candy to whomever I wanted this year.
    But first, I had to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up and how to incorporate this idea into a costume that involved my chair. Costumes that incorporate a wheelchair are a lot more difficult to make than you might think. People always suggest that I should be a car or a tank, and just plop a big, painted box over my head and wheelchair, but I’ve tried this, and the box inevitably slips out of position and falls on top of my joystick, causing my wheelchair to spaz the hell out and crash into groups of young children at top speed. Therefore, most years I have opted to dress up as something that only loosely involves my chair. Here are some examples for you to laugh at:

    The year of the Halloween parade however, I ended up deciding that I wanted to be a lawn mower (a person who mows lawns, not the physical object) when I grew up. I know, practical. I was only ten, and at the time my dad owned a pretty big lawn business. Since I looked up to him, lawn mower it was. I wish I had a picture of this costume, but I basically dressed in jeans, boots, and a shirt that read, “Burcaw Custom Lawn Service.” We attached a wagon to the back of my wheelchair with duct tape and filled it with a bunch of fake lawn mowing equipment. I looked pretty boss.
    Naturally, it was pouring rain the morning of the Halloween parade. Bethlehem’s city officials chose to not cancel the parade, and my elementary school made the responsible decision and called everyone to say that we were still expected to be at the parade. Awesome.
    It’s important to understand that $28,000 electric wheelchairs do not mix well with rain. They are designed to be able to handle a small amount of water, but any prolonged exposure to heavy rain can result in serious damage. Last summer, I got caught outside in a flash rainstorm and my chair didn’t work for three days, and as you can probably imagine, being without my wheelchair makes me want to put my head through a wall.
    We decided to tough it out and face the rain with everyone else. My dad drove me to the parade; he would be walking next to me along the way because I wasn’t old enough to rely on my friends to help me out with stuff yet. Our elementary school was designated the very last position in the parade. There’s nothing like a bunch of little kids in shitty costumes to send a parade out with a bang! This meant that we all had to stand out in the pouring rain at the beginning of the parade while the rest of the parade got started down Main Street.
    My father insisted that we cover my chair in a rain poncho while we waited for our turn to join the parade, which in hindsight was definitely a good idea because my chair would have undoubtedly short-circuited and exploded during the hour that we had to stand there and wait.
    Luckily, the rain had slowed to a steady mist when it was finally our turn to join the parade. My dad took the poncho off and secured the wagon to the back of my wheelchair. Our class merged onto Main Street and started the slow half-mile walk to the end. The couple hundred people who decided to brave the rain to watch the parade acted like my costume was the cutest, most awesome thing they had ever seen in their life. There was a bucket of candy in the wagon behind me, and I instructed my dad to throw handfuls to people, as opposed to single pieces, because when I had watched the parade in past years, I hated all the douchers that only threw out single Tootsie