Okay I admit that there have been times when I was faced with a situation where I should have stood up and demanded equal treatment for cripples, but I took the easy way out. I don't feel guilty about it, but I do feel guilty about not feeling guilty about it.
Like for instance, there was that time I signed up to be in a focus group. One hundred bucks cash for giving my opinion about some stupid products. So they're giving us all who signed up an orientation and they tell us we’ll have to take extensive notes and stuff like that about the products. I said hold on a minute. I’ll need some accommodation here. Someone has to help me with all that handwriting.
So the people conducting the focus group huddled. Then one of them came up to me and handed me an envelope with two crisp fifty dollar bills inside. She smiled and thanked me for my time and service and dismissed me.
I took the money and left. Now I suppose, for the benefit of the next cripple who might come along after me, I should’ve insisted that the focus group people deal with me. But I had a hard time getting indignant about it. That would’ve been like saying, “How dare you give the same money for doing nothing that everyone else is working for! I demand equal treatment!” I’ll leave that battle for some bold cripple of the future to fight.
It’s like the many times I’ve been riding in an elevator by myself and the door opens and there’s a vert (which is short for vertical, which is what I call people who walk). And even though there’s plenty of room in the elevator, the vert says something like, “Oops, I’ll take the next one.” And the vert backs away and the door closes and the elevator continues on. And at first I say to myself, “What the fuck! I’m just crippled! I’m not Typhoid Mary!” And then I think about how I should go right back to that floor and when the door opens tell that damn vert to get on this elevator with me right now! “How dare you let me have this elevator all to myself!”
That would be pretty stupid, wouldn’t it?
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