Minus the word “Hell” and the shouting, this seems like the perfect response - it’s polite enough, and it’ll make the speaker feel like the idiot they are.
Carnak, just a quick thank you for opening this thread, and to everyone who’s commented. I liked reading it and getting some more insight on proper interaction. I’ll admit I find myself a bit nervous making new acquaintances - handicapped or otherwise.
Maybe I missed your point here, but how was he supposed to open the door if it wasn’t working? And why would it hurt you to open a door for a guy in a wheelchair?
Sounds supremely assholish to me.
Depending on the person, if I ever do this, I might or might not subtract the hell. It’s not that strong a word in my world, though it’s on the rude side. In fact, that’s why I chose it when I wrote that post in the first place! Though, to be fair, I don’t think I’d really yell it anyway. Maybe I’m a coward.
I know what you mean though – if I could master a look of dawning horror, followed by “Oh my, I never knew…THAT’S why I can’t reach the top shelf…” that might be just as effective.
I’ve heard really tall people get the same sort of thing “Wow, you’re tall, how tall are you, do you play basketball?” and suchlike. It must be just as annoying!
Great! Great.
Now I have an image of Stephen Hawking leaning in close to a foreigner and, in ultraloud Hawking (before he got that cool talking machine) belting out, “GGGGGRRRRROOOOOOOOOOAAANNN!!!” to get his point accross the language barrier.
I suspect the point was that the guy using the chair was being an asshole by approaching the situation the way he did: Instead of asking Hoosier Mama to open the door (“Hi, the automatic door seems to be out of service; could you grab the door for me?”), he expected her to automatically notice & was rude when she didn’t. I’d’ve left his ass there, too.
My friends and I who use chairs always try to make our needs known - in as polite a manner as possible. It seems that this guy was a dick who felt a sense of entitlement - he makes the rest of us look bad.
It’s evident from reading this thread that not all of us feel the same about issues of disability etiquette (witness the stand/crouch discussion). Ideally, those who need assistance should make their needs & preferences known; people being different, some of us are self-conscious for a variety of reasons & aren’t likely to ask for help, but may gladly accept help offered.
If you see someone who appears to be struggling, I figure you can’t go wrong doing this:
Ask, “Excuse me, would you like some assistance, or are you set?”. The person will either accept, politely decline, or decline in an assholish manner. If they opt for the third choice, then either they’re acting like assholes at that moment or they’re assholes all the time.
On the other hand, if someone expects you to read his/her mind & offer assistance according to what you gleaned via ESP, then s/he is unrealistic at best, assholish at worst.
I forgot one thing, just FYI: Just because someone’s using a chair (particularly a manual chair) doesn’t mean they can’t open doors. It takes skill & practice, but I can open most doors by myself - sometimes I hold doors open for people & chuckle to myself at how surprised they are.
And I hope you don’t think I took offense, Indygrrl - I just noticed that my post could be interpreted as being a bit…strident, but that wasn’t the intent.
When I’m on my scooter I can get most doors open – it’s awkward, but doable.
That’s all we’re asking for.
So opening a dialogue about these awkward situations makes it worse? Somehow that seems backwards. Would not talking about it make it better? Should we not try to inform people? 
That’s a terrible story, and I feel for you and your dad, but I think the waitress did the right thing by treating him like an adult and assuming he’s a human being deserving of being spoken to directly. The problem came from your dad not being able to respond well, and that’s understandable.
I imagine he could have opened the door the same way I did - push it. Wouldn’t have hurt me to open it any more than it would have hurt him. (I prefer not to get into a what-if discussion about how it may have actually hurt him more. No one knows the extent of his disability any more than anyone knows of mine.) BTW, once I did catch up to the guy I still wouldn’t have helped with the door (unless I was asked politely) if I’d found him struggling to push it open. He was a grown-ass adult and I would rather get back with my cheating ex-husband than patronize a man who, although with difficulty, was doing for himself. Independence means a lot to some people.
You were referring to the guy’s attitude, not mine, right? (I know, it’s not nice to quote in that order, but I’m irritated. So there.) Maybe I missed your point Indygrrl, but are you implying that a person’s rude behavior is acceptable if that person is disabled? If so, you’re a more forgiving woman than I am. My point (and Cosmopolitan clarified it) is that a disability is no excuse for rudeness. I don’t care how freaking different you are from me, if you don’t treat me with common decency then you can rot for all I care. If the man had said “The door’s not working, would you get it for me?”, not a problem. However, the man immediately snapped at me. For some silly reason I don’t respond to supremely assholish commands, wheelchair or not.
Perhaps I’m misinterpreting, but I don’t believe that Starving Artist actually means that it’s bad to have a discussion such as this (I’m definitely learning and hope to learn more - thanks Carnick). It’s just that several people who have been kind enough to share their experiences have differing opionions on abled-body person associations and that leads to uncertainty to what is unoffensive and what’s not (but fer crying out loud, NO patting on the head!). See above to my angry retort to Indygrrl. From her post I imagine her to be a kind lady. Even though she she said I’m supremely assholish. A first for me. Asshole, yes. Bitch, yes. Supremely assholish (although I wish she’d added bitch) - I’m sorta honored. Anyway, I’m also a kind lady, but she and I most likely have differing personalities that dictate our responses to these sorts of situations. Golden rule stuff, but I think people generally treat others as they want to be treated. I’m overly independent so I get irritated at those who just want to help. I may be a jerk, but I don’t accept help nor go out of my way to help anyone else (disabled or not). I’m of the opinion that, hell, it’s your life and you deal with it. I’ve got my own life to worry about. I treat everyone the same regardless of race, gender, sexual preference and pysical differences (political association does not follow that rule). I’m supremely assholish. Don’t like that? Tough. (Here’s looking at you, butthole at Target when you could have opened the friggin’ door yourself and instead decided to present your “poor me, I’m in a chair” attitude and snarled at me - you need a therapist. I hope you get a flat tire. Sue me.)
Oh, I am so hoping the Karma people are right in this case.
I look at this from my own life experience and realize others haven’t had my lived through my situation. But when my dad had his stroke, everything in his life and those around him changed, forever. We all did the best we could. We had no preparation for what life would be like. We took it one day at a time, and some of those days were very, very bad. With lots of training and hard work on all our parts, my dad was able to live at home again. The man who had once been the provider and protector of our family was now the one who couldn’t eat or defecate without assistance. Every day was a challenge. Was fighting in WWII ever any worse for him? I doubt it, but I could never know because he could not speak anymore and tell me what his life was like now for him.
In time we got the point where I could take him out. It took a good thirty minutes to get him in the car, and wheelchair stored, but he loved getting out, and I was glad to be able to do something for him he loved. But when I took him out by myself, I was always a nervous wreck, what if something happens I don’t know how to deal with? What if we get to the door and no one would open it for us? He had a manual chair, I had to push it. If the door needed to be pulled to open I was in trouble because I never figured out a way to do that by standing behind him pushing the chair.
But luckily most of the time we went out there were people who would go out of their way to help us. People sometimes raced across the parking lot so they would just happen to be at the door in time to open it for us. I loved those people. Some people would go out of their way to make a path for my dad if there obstacles in the way. I adored those people. They made our time out so much easier.
But sometimes I misjudged how far out the footrest of the wheelchair was and would bump someone’s chair, or worse their leg. Sometimes I would smack my dad’s leg against something hard causing him pain. And at the end of some days I was completely drained. He wouldn’t be doing well, and I felt I was doing everything wrong. Some days I was just overwhelmed with it all and mad at the world.
Before he had the stroke, I had imagined coming home from college and stealing some time away to be alone with my dad. I would ask his advice on what business courses to take, what would be a good topic for a term paper. Instead I was now sitting there cutting up his food, making trivial small talk to cover his silence. At those times being friendly, nice and sweet to a stranger was not something that was going to happen. At the end of one of those days, I may have snarled at someone who was able, but not willing to open a door for us. It would have been totally out of character for me. I would have later felt terrible, realizing that my lack of appropriate manners may now cause someone who needed help not to get it.
And as bad as I felt on those days, my dad, I am sure felt so much worse. I can’t imagine how hard it was for him to have to accept what he had to go through each and every day.
I would like to think he had more good days than bad days. I certainly did when I was with him. I cherish memory of those days out we had together, as unimaginable as they were. And I am so grateful to those anonymous strangers that went out of their way to help us. Even on our bad days, there were some that perhaps through their own life experiences, perhaps because they were truly compassionate people, still offered assistance to me even when I may not have been particularly deserving of it. I do my best now to repay that kindness, and even if someone is rude, and snaps at me, I will give them the benefit of a doubt and help them out.
One of the guys that lives in my dorms is blind, and has been since birth. Sam is a hilarious, charming young man who can play the guitar and sing beautifully. He knows the campus well and often walks alone with his cane, when he can. (Our campus sidewalks are ‘historic’ brick walkways, however, which makes walking dangerous for anyone, so he takes a friend with him when he can, especially if he’s crossing a few streets, if it’s at night, etc.)
His roommate from last year, Jeff, is an acquaintance of mine, and tends to be a real asshole a good deal of the time. Jeff and Sam get along pretty well and tease each other often-- Sam calls him a fat bastard and Jeff calls Sam a blind pervert because he has to “feel people up to see them.” Listening to them bicker back and forth can be amusing, but I always feel angry when Jeff takes Sam’s cane away and refuses to give it back to him (until enough people around him protest and force him to give it back). It makes me wish Sam would beat Jeff with his cane once he gets it back, but maybe that’s because Jeff’s just kind of a jerk in general and trying to get attention and be a bully.
My friend Lila’s was born with a left arm that stops a bit after the elbow. My boyfriend will sometimes poke fun at her for it and she laughs harder than anybody (mostly because everyone else is too horrified to laugh). She thinks (correctly) he’s being typically outrageous and she isn’t offended in the slightest. The only time I’ve ever seen her make an issue of her ‘disability’ in any way is when a cafeteria lady bitched her out for putting an apple in her jacket pocket so that she could balance her bowl and other piece of fruit between the crook of her elbow and in her other hand. The cafeteria lady insisted that Lila follow the “one piece of fruit at a time” rule even after Lila reluctantly pointed out that she had one hand, and was having a hard time trying to hold everything, and that it was silly to walk all the way back to the table to put down her food and walk back for an apple OR to try and put down the apple without losing her other food. The lady would not drop it and so finally Laura told her to deal with it and walked off.
coughs Laura, Lila. Same person. It’s late. Sorry.
As an amputee (right leg above the knee) for damn near 20 years, I hear what you all are saying.
Some people mean well, but trip out dealing with a disabled person…no problem. A few minutes of conversation can educate them.
With the assholes though, I just take off my carbon fiber/titanium foot and whack the shit out of 'em with it.
Snatching a blind man’s cane? What a manly man.