Louis, no!!!

At Homebase, rolling slowly up the aisle, trying to find the nails I want, young couple on the other side with a 3-4yo. Suddenly "Louis, no!"

I turned round in the chair, rather than with the chair, which was just as well. At first I thought he'd grabbed the spreader bar across the back of the chair, and he probably did have one hand on it. But the other was wrapped around tyre and pushrim. If I'd spun in place there would have been tears (and probably blood).

Normally I'm quite relaxed about kids being curious about the chair, better to get them thinking of it as normal when they're young, but this was dangerous, so I let his mortified mum force him to say sorry. (She did a good job, telling him "those are his legs" and so on).

And off he ran down the aisle while we both turned back to what we were doing. I spotted the ones I wanted, but had to stand up to get them, at which point there's a shriek of 'Louis, no!!!!"

The little sod had come tearing up the aisle and dived into the chair from the back and across the wheel - just as well I'd been too lazy to slot the clothes guard on, he'd very likely have wrecked that. And just as well I hadn't flumped back into the chair as usual. Mum, now even more mortified, grabs him by the hand, yanks him round the corner "When I tell you don't touch..."

Drags him back around, makes him apologise to me again. Dad is all "And those treats, you needn't think you're getting those", while I'm trying to keep a straight face, because it was so utterly beyond the bounds of what you expect, but they genuinely needed to teach him not to do that for both his safety and any chair user's.

Mentioned this on FB a little while ago and have already had several wheelchair using friends report similar instances. Seriously, people?