# Attitudes towards the disabled

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attitudes-towards-the-disabled/548385>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 28, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attitudes-towards-the-disabled/548385 "2010-07-28T23:22:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Chickie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chickie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chickie)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attitudes-towards-the-disabled/548385/21 "2010-07-31T03:53:33Z")

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I’m not disabled, but I had some chronic health problems through my youth (was born in 1982). I’d be out of school for maybe a month at a time, every other month. My teachers would generally send the work home when I was ill and my mother, a former teacher herself, would go through the textbook and assignments with me. I’d send my homework in every week and take the standard exams and generally do very well (I’m smart and with private tutoring, well, hey!). When I returned to class, I was generally caught-up.

Every once in a while, though, we’d get a recalcitrant teacher who would question why I was even enrolled in public schooling, claim that I couldn’t learn the curriculum if I wasn’t in class, didn’t want the hassle of sending my assignments home, refuse to let me come in and take an exam a few days late, etc. My mother relied upon the ADA to insist upon reasonable accommodations for me when I was sick. Without it, I would have flunked countless exams that I wasn’t in class for simply because, well, “it’s not fair to the other students that she get any extra time”. Pfffah. They can take my 4.0 high school GPA and shove it.

Big flashbulb moment for me when I became old enough to realize that, hey, the ADA is for _temporarily disabled_ people, too! As if anyone who becomes sick or injured should just be SOL.

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**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attitudes-towards-the-disabled/548385/22 "2010-07-31T13:15:19Z")

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> [@alphaboi867](#):
>
> I once made a waitress cry after she did that to my legally blind (but pre-Alzheimer’s) grandmother. Grandma did look really frail and needed someone to read the menu to her, but had good hearing. The waitress didn’t even acknowledge her, she asked _me_ what she wanted, asked me what sides, how she took her coffee, etc and Grandma was looking right at her and starting look look embarressed (not that she’d ever actually say anything). I said nothing at the table, after the waitress left I excused my self to go the bathroom, found the waitress and proceeded to chew her out in front of the owner. She broke down in tears and the apologetic & horrified owner ended up waiting out table (dessert & coffee on the house).

In her book on manners, “I Try to Behave Myself,” Peg Bracken tells the story of a blind musician at a banquet. The waitress asked his wife “Would your husband like more chicken?” The musician snapped “How the hell would she know if I’d like more chicken?”

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