Last post Mon, Nov 12 2007 7:35 AM by sharonr. 29 replies.
Drum roll please... I've been working on my first ever top ten list. Chime in with more if you can think of anything!
10 – People staring at you like you’re the featured freak show at Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
9 – Non Handicapped People Using Handicapped Parking Spots (I hope their car gets destroyed).
8 – Only talking to your able friend, not you (because handicapped people can’t think or talk by nature).
7 – Constantly asking if you’re improved, or doing better (yes, my paraplegia took a turn for the better this morning at 2am, thanks for asking).
6 – Shouting at people in wheelchairs like they’re deaf.
5 – Abandoning them completely (to bad about the accident, now can I get a divorce?).
4 – Thinking Disability is a deserved consequence (if you hadn’t been so evil in your last life none of this would have happened…).
3 – Pity. Thanks for deciding for me that my life sucks.
2 – Asking incredibly personal questions (fine, what’s your income, how do you have sex?).
And, the number one insult?
1 – Stop faking it, you don’t look disabled!
I like it...we need to get this on Letterman or something.
Ha! Story for number 9....my friend that's in a chair has an accessible van. During the holidays EVERYONE thinks they need to park close. So some teenage girl parked in the lines between her and another handicapped parking spot. She was so p-ed off that she dropped her ramp from her van....it hit the girls car and guess who got the ticket? Not the one parking illegally....
GREAT list!
#8 drives me NUTS!!!
hugs, lola
Yeah these are awesome!
How bout adding the ole faithful statement, "I don't even think of you as disabled." implying, "If I did do you think I'd be here!?!?"
lol, that's so true, kara! it smells like denial to me, and i don't like that!
Haha...great list. I like #6 and #7.
Haha! You all should check out this YouTube video featuring a scene from the TV show Rescue Me...I feel like it relates almost perfectly to some of the stuff on this list.
great video, orangemango, thanks for posting
That's a great top ten! I've gotten over the handicapped parking issue, for the most part, except when it's raining. I do always hope that one of the idiot's that has taken the parking place without physically needing it will walk by while the skinny little crippled girl is pulling her wheelchair out of the backseat of her car, and feel really really bad! That works even better if it's raining!
Why do people yell at wheelchair people? Try this: yell your reply back at them. I'm a smartass, I'll probably get shot for that one one of these days.
Here's a couple:
People watching you get your chair out of your car, unfolded, seat put in, and THEN offering to help!
Men who look at me and think "wow, what a waste". I mean, I know it's their loss, but still....
#8 is such a pain.
Are others bothered by people who do not need to use accessible bathroom stalls but use them anyway???
-Jen
I hate that! I'm sorry you're too fat to fit comfortably in the regular stalls! You can lose weight, i'm not going to learn how to walk at this late date! Then there are the handicapped stalls that are only a tiny bit bigger than the regular ones, so i just end up leaving the door open....if people can't see the wheelchair sticking out, and decide to come on over and see if there's anyone using, and get a eyeful of me cath-ing......too bad, so sad.
Great list, CF
#10 used to drive me nuts -- people standing there with a detached, almost clinical/'scientific' eye as I was seizing before them (but I've come to ignore them now and not care).
#9 just because. Cars do get "keyed", and it's all I can do to keep from doing that when I see a person with crutches or "wheeling" across the lot because some abled person wanted a closer/better spot.
#7 even though my condition has been diagnosed as permanent (as you'll see in my bio, the surgeons that my wife and I had dealt with determined that with the number of areas of brain damage that I have, asking did I want to continue walking and talking, or go through with the procedure?).
#5 fortunately, I have a wonderful wife (only my girlfriend at the time that I became a person with epilepsy/ABI), who never left my side.
#3 yes, I understand that you're my mom, and I'll always be your 'little boy', and yes, you're my parents-in-law, and I know that you'll always care....but really....I've learned to deal with it. Life goes on.
People who ask my wife when she's at work, in a pitying tone, "So what does he do all day???"
#2 Concerning sex....people asking my wife, "Does 'everything else' on him 'work'"?
#1 people staring at me or making comments when I get out of the car, when we park in a handicapped site when I'm not wearing my helmet.
On #2...I had people park in the stripped areas between disabled parking spots and I need to use the right side of van to get in & out
#8 is really annoying...I just speak up and make direct eye contact with them...That usually takes them back
Joe
sharonr:People watching you get your chair out of your car, unfolded, seat put in, and THEN offering to help!
Yeah, I like that one. And when people do so I hold up my arms and tell them they have to lift me out of my car now.
Sometimes people are very honest and say they just want to see how it´s done with the chair and the transfer, if I would mind? And when I think they can take it I say `no, and for a buck or two I would even do it twice´.
