Cane and Able: #2 Sticks and Stones

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Sometimes the comments people make on disability astound me. Some of the most dense comments I have heard are simply unbelievable.

I have been sat on a bus before, in the disabled seating, with my crutches, I needed the leg room. This woman came on with a pushchair. Put it in the wheelchair space (for safety you're supposed to fold up the chairs, put in the space provided and sit with the child) then turned to me
"Move."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I have a right to sit here" *points at the sign saying priority to the disabled, elderly and pregnant - there are four seats, only three are taken.*
"Um, I need the leg room" *wiggles crutches*
"I'm a *MOTHER*"
"Well that was hardly my fault."
She started getting mouthy at that point and was only when the bus driver shouted at her to fold up the chair and sit down elsewhere with her "brat" (his word, not mine) that she finally stopped getting lippy and sat elsewhere.

Likewise I have been in my chair in town when a man walked into the side of me, a common occurance, unfortunately - people don't tend to look down as they walk. The usual response is a simple apology and the walker moving on, in this instance however, he looked down at me, confused, then enraged. In my mild surprise he started shouting at me for "ramming into him" apparently in his universe wheelchairs can jump sideways into unsuspecting pedestrians.

Once on crutches a person asked me if I was on them due to broken arms... I can only guess what she presumed slings were for.

I have heard that sign language is for the blind to be able to speak properly.

Apparently braille isn't an alphabet - it was something made up for blind people but it doesn't really mean anything.

I have watched someone stroke a guide dog that was walking their owner across a busy road.

Apparently people are in wheelchairs because their brains won't let them walk.

I have heard of a do-gooder raising funds on the street for Cerebal Palsy preaching about the disease to someone with the condition - they didn't even recognise their folly.

The idiocy I can forgive, as long as the idiots are willing to hear. What i cannot stand is the simpering. The unabashed pity of morons who believe their provide a valued service by gracing the cripples with their presence and pretense. The ones who talk as one would to a child or to the dying. The ones who will pat you on the head as a reward like you are a dog or other tame animal. The treatment that confirms the lack of percieved humanity. A simple error in genetics, or time and place, that saps your right to be treated like an average person.

And those that simple won't speak to you, like you cannot hear them, or see them, or interact. They talk to your companions, "what would she like to drink?", "Will you be ordering for both of you?", "Can you manage on your own at the station or would you like help?", "I'll take her for you, I've done it before."

A simple accident in my programming does not rob me of basic comprehension, I can speak, think and act for myself. True, I am indecisive in nature and can often seem distant or ponderous. To teach me as an inanimate object or primitive in thought and manner is a grave insult, however. A little consideration, even if it means asking the carer if they're okay to talk, it's less of a degredation than the outright presumption of mental incapacity. It is not like I've leant over my armrest and started fervently licking the display windows on the food cabinets. I may require the menu to be read to me - I am terribly short sighted. I cannot see it over counters.

I am hardly a stranger to manifestations of physical pain, but for others to inflict insults through carelessness, ignorance and simple poor will is abhorrant. People need a good kick in the arse now and then to remember brain and body are inevitably tied, but a break in one does not bely the other to a similar fate.