Current mood:

bitchy

Top Twelve Things that Annoy Me As a Disabled Woman....
And a few other miscellaneous rants.

1. Handicapped stalls that aren’t big enough for a baby stroller let alone a regular wheelchair. Heaven help you if your conveyance needs a “Wide Load” sign. Kudos however, to Bellis Fair Mall and Westlake Mall, which both have handicapped bathroom stalls big enough to drive a scooter into.
2. Doors on handicapped stalls that are installed so they swing in instead of out. You try to get a wheelchair or walker into the stall with the door in the way.
3. People who sit in the bus shelter and smoke, forcing those of us with asthma to stand or sit outside in the rain. Take your pollution to where it can go into dilution, outside the bus shelter.
4. People who try to distract my service dog. Yes, she is cute as a button, but she’s working. Leave her alone. That goes double ditto for guide dogs, whose owners can’t see you annoying their dogs. Moreover, our dogs aren’t slaves; they are much happier having work to do than they would be staying at home alone for long hours.
5. People who try to feed my service dog. She doesn’t need any more food than I give her. The man who was throwing French fries to her on the bus gets special mention.
6. People who ask what my disability is. It’s none of your business. This was especially annoying while my disability was invisible, before I got an assistive device.
7. I live in subsidized housing for the elderly and disabled. Just because I have a Belltown address doesn’t mean I have Belltown money. Target your audience a little better, save some trees and money by not sending me advertising for high-end condos and restaurants. This advertising is more annoying to me than the ads I get for incontinence products. Which I also don’t need.
8. Curb cuts that are outside the area of the crosswalk, or which require an awkward wandering to get from one side of the street to another. I hope that someday all the curb cuts will be like the new ones at Fourth and Cedar, in the crosswalk both ways and with the knobby surface.
9. I was on a bus once when a woman with a mental disorder of some sort began talking to herself. Other passengers were very rude and began laughing at her. There is nothing fun or funny about that sort of disability. How would you like it if they were laughing at you?
10. People who publicly complain in the newspaper about disabled people taking up space on a crowded bus. If said person is always on the bus in the evenings, she is probably tired and going home from work, too. Be grateful, she’s a taxpayer, unlike myself, who hasn’t been able to find a job I can do with my disabilities yet. Even the job the Social Security Administration says I could do (working in a call center, a major employment venue for disabled people) are going overseas. It is estimated that about 70% of the disabled are unemployed. Be grateful you have a job to go home tired from. It beats living on GA-X or SSI by a wide margin.
11. Inaccessible “accessible” restrooms. They have the fancy new flat handles, but no electric opener. If you are in a wheelchair or on a scooter, you have to wait for someone to let you in and out the door. IMHO, it’s not accessible unless it has the electric opener. I want to do it myself, thank you.
12. People who walk down the street talking on cell phones or with I-Pods, etc. stuck on their ears. They can’t hear me behind then, even when I ask to pass them on the left. They walk straight across your path. They can’t decide which side to walk on so you can get past them. And of course, the horn on my scooter is puny. No way you could hear it in traffic. Hang up, get the earbuds out of your ears and pay attention to where you are walking. I have threatened to get one of those portable airhorns to use, especially when they stop suddenly right in front of me. I am trying not to hit anyone.
What brought this rant on was visiting our new library, which is supposed to be very cool, (designed by Rem Koolhaus), but isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in the accessibility department. Along with the narrow book spiral, the Fifth Ave. door, which has the buttons on the wrong side in a sort of dark airlock is super annoying, (I couldn’t figure out how to get out of it until I read the news story.) The Fourth Ave. entrance doesn’t have the annoying airlock, and the buttons are on the correct side, but when you are outside, and press the button on the right, the left door opens. What, too cheap to have both doors open?
The other model of inaccessible accessibility is right down the street at the Seattle Downtown YMCA. It advertises that it is in a newly renovated, classic building. Classic, circa 1920, when young Christian men never had disabilities. There are 10 steps up to the door. There is a lift, and an intercom to call someone to assist you with the lift. The only problem is that so far, every time I have been there, the intercom has not worked properly, and I end up crawling up the stairs, which my knees just love. And then, the lift is old and balky. As I said before, accessible means I can do it myself.
Which reminds me of a T-shirt I saw at the Pow Wow. It said, “The American’s with Disabilities Act, To Boldly Go Where Everyone Else Has Gone Before.” I want one, but they were made by a state agency for the 10th anniversary of the Act in 2000.
And speaking of rants, Mark on the 19th Floor has threatened to write an Idiot’s Guide to Disability Etiquette. Jody and Katja are both threatening to collaborate with him on it. Count me in. People are always trying to help me when I don't need it, but it's difficult to get some people to help you with obvious things, like getting something down for me from a shelf over my head.
"Well," said Pooh, "it's the middle of the night, which is a good time for going to sleep..."
G’night, all.