The New Ride

By: Connor Lenahan

Earlier this year I endured one of the weirdest 12 hour stretches of my life when my wheelchair was stolen late in the evening of Marathon Monday. Thanks to the help of my friends and general people who agree that stealing a chair is in many ways wrong I was able to find it not long after it went missing. Seriously, I was asleep for the majority of the time it was gone. Then within two hours of posting the article that led to its recovery I was sitting in the chair once again. It could not have worked any better.

Over the summer the chair that had been with me through sun and snow, theft and recovery, had been severely injured. The front right wheel in the picture above shows rust leaking out. It wasn’t in amazing shape to begin with thanks to an especially harsh winter. Rain was the final blow as the front wheel mechanism gave out and left me in need of my backup chair for the summer. The backup chair worked fine, but it was not nearly as built for Boston as my Golden Boy chair above. That thing is/was incredible. This chair that I had used was a considerable downgrade – slower, lighter to a fault (it would routinely tip over when I stood up due to the weight of my backpack), and a set of front wheels that would be constantly harassed by the cracked streets and sidewalks of Boston.

Yesterday came the new ride. The new tank to put my replacement chair out of its misery. It was an improved version of the Golden Boy. How so improved?

Let me show you.

Meet The Tank. This thing is amazing. To the untrained eye it looks identical to the Golden Boy. Ha Ha I say to you all. Ha Ha indeed. See this is no simple chair. This thing is an animal. This is a wrecking ball. This is a monster. This is my new best friend.

The most visible change is the paint job. Gone is the metallic navy of the Golden Boy. Too easily dirtied by the puddles/mini-oceans of Commonwealth Ave. In comes the candy red paint job. Boston University red. I’m a Terriermobile. You think you got school spirit? Think again. I’ve got it all. Literally all of it.

But wait, there’s more.

Check the tire game though. We aren’t messing around here. There’s a reason it’s called The Tank. It’s these two-and-a-half inch pythons right here. Seriously, they’re huge.

These things glide over bricks and bumps. Oh what’s that? A cobblestone sidewalk? Nothing to The Tank. Bricks? Get that weak stuff outta here. Sidewalks are like ice – I just glide past people. These tires are genuinely wider than one of my shins. I’m not kidding, I checked. These tires are so wide that, should anyone anger me, I can run them over like the steamroller in Austin Powers.

You can’t stop me. This chair doesn’t have a “beast mode.” This chair lives in a perpetual state of beast. This chair causes nightmares for those of you that elect to “walk” with your “legs.” This chair is out for vengeance on all that have wronged it – mainly cracks in the sidewalk. You cannot stop it, you can only hope to contain it. Catch me in it every day on Comm Ave.