The Wheelchair Diaries.

Hello, readers!
Welcome to the latest guest blog. This one comes from Taylor, who has been with the show for two years now. He started as a lowly PA, but quickly became an editor, and has spent the past year being a truly kickin' propmaster and art director. No matter what we've thrown at him, Taylor always figures out a crazy and innovative way to get every prop we ask for, and twice as many brilliant ones that we didn't even think of.

So they told me that I needed to get a wheelchair…

As you can imagine I was “thrilled,” and by thrilled, I mean contemplated suicide. The thing about wheelchairs is to get them from any hospital/student health services you need a prescription, as it is an expensive item, and probably too many frat boys have had accidents with them.

So I started trying to find one, I went to Goodwill, I checked thrift stores, anywhere that might have one. Then I turned to the internet. I wanted to see how much a used wheelchair was, I found one without wheels for $25, but that wouldn’t work. I also found many that were $300, but that wouldn’t work.

And finally, after an entire weekend of looking for a wheelchair, let me repeat that, AN ENTIRE WEEKEND OF LOOKING FOR A SINGLE PROP, THAT’S ONE ITEM FOR A COLLEGE TV SHOW, I found an add selling a wheelchair for $75, but there was no picture, and the guy was in Malden.

Taylor, March 2009, with a briefcase for the crack den.

I think I can make this work…maybe…I mean I am awesome.

So come Wednesday, Chad (Lauren) and I load into her car for a little road trip. And by road trip I mean getting stuck in traffic for an hour trying to decipher Beyonce lyrics. It was fun, except for the traffic, we talked about how I should watch Glee, Chad’s friends, my brother, and such. It was fun until we reached our final destination.

As soon as we pulled up to this man’s, who I never met, house we heard this “sceetch scretch sreetch screeeetchhhh” It’s the kind of sound you hear in a horror movie right before the two unsuspecting kids who are only there to pick up a wheelchair for a college TV show get killed, kind of sound.

I turned to Chad and said, “Maybe they just have a giant hamster?”

Taylor, April 2009, checking in with the directors.

As we got closer to the door, the sound stopped, suddenly. You’d think that in a situation like that it’d probably be comforting that a sound like that would stop, but it made everything creepier, until the man, “Mike Wheels” as he’s labeled in my phone, answered the door.

He was a very nice man and we had no need to worry, and then he said this,

“I’ll be honest with you guys the person this was for, well, she, never really, got the chance to, uh, use this.” He almost cried. It was beyond awkward. He asked, “Who this for? A Grandparent?” Because Chad and I look so much alike. Chad answered for me, “It’s actually for a television show.” Mike Wheels was obviously a little upset that we were using it to film with rather than helping some elderly person.

Taylor "inserting an IV" into actress Farrell.

He was very polite though and asked all the questions people normally do when they find out you make something they can watch. You know the, “Oh what is it?”’s and “Where can I find it?”’s.

We left with the wheelchair and found no traffic coming back to Boston. And there were no further problems, except, I paid for it out of my own pocket, and have yet to be reimbursed by BUTV, so I guess now I own a $75 wheelchair stored in studio east.

Needless to say, Taylor won the TCB award this week.

Thanks for writing, Taylor! I promise you'll be reimbursed when the paperwork goes through :)

I hope everyone's looking forward to flat-painting on Friday, and our first Saturday shoot this weekend!

Mint green flats are okay freshman year, but after that, they're just skanky.
-Jenn