More Handicapped than Thou
Jul. 14th, 2006 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebToday on the bus there weren't quite enough handicapped seats for everyone who wanted them. In this bus, these consisted of two three-place seats lining opposites sides of the bus and facing each other. Most buses I ride also have forward-facing seats just behind these side-facing seats, but this bus had metal walls blocking those seats.
A man with a white cane and a woman got on the bus and wanted to sit up front. One woman who had been hogging one whole seat readjusted things so that she was now taking up only two of the three places. (She was in one, a large bag was in one, and her other bags were under the seat.) The two newcomers wanted more space, and she didn't want to move.
Finally the bus driver had to intervene. He got up out of his seat. The seated woman said, "They struck me. I didn't strike them. They struck me twice on my knee. I'm just as handicapped as they are. I'm partially blind, too." I did not have a clean line of sight to either of her knees.
Then the people in the other front seat got up. It looked like a family with a man, a woman, and two kids who had all squished into a three-place seat to be together. They quietly spread out into three other seats.
The man with the cane and woman sat down.
And we all lived happily ever after. The end.
A man with a white cane and a woman got on the bus and wanted to sit up front. One woman who had been hogging one whole seat readjusted things so that she was now taking up only two of the three places. (She was in one, a large bag was in one, and her other bags were under the seat.) The two newcomers wanted more space, and she didn't want to move.
Finally the bus driver had to intervene. He got up out of his seat. The seated woman said, "They struck me. I didn't strike them. They struck me twice on my knee. I'm just as handicapped as they are. I'm partially blind, too." I did not have a clean line of sight to either of her knees.
Then the people in the other front seat got up. It looked like a family with a man, a woman, and two kids who had all squished into a three-place seat to be together. They quietly spread out into three other seats.
The man with the cane and woman sat down.
And we all lived happily ever after. The end.