Disabled shouldn’t mean disadvantaged

Afternoon all! I had a fantastic work week just gone - lots to do on a few new websites, and so forth. Last night a friend came over and we had some really nice beef ribs (from Ribbett’s) for dinner, a few drinks and then played a few stages of Halo on the Xbox. Let’s just say that I’m a bit unco at FPS-style games on the Xbox. I think a normal game would be fine, but in Halo you have to steer 2 different things with 2 joysticks – one is the camera, and the other is where you’re firing / walking. It’s annoying. It’d be much better if you had one set of movement controls that did both – and shooting always came from the centre of the screen where the crosshair is – but no. lol. Grrr, annoying! Anyway

But back to the point of this post, which comes from an experience I just had. Disabled shouldn’t mean disadvantaged – but often, it does. Let me explain. About an hour ago, I caught a bus to the shops down on Oxford Street at Bulimba to go to Woolies for some groceries. Being a typical Virgo, I knew that I’d have a hour to kill before the next bus was coming past to take me home – so I went to the bottle-shop and got some Franjelico, then went into Woolies and bought the ingredients for the dinner I’m cooking for my friends tonight (a selection of pasta dishes).

Anyway, by the timne I’d done all that, I had 40minutes to kill for the bus, so I’m like hrm… I can’t really wait in the sun, cause the mince might not like it – and while the shade looked good, I really couldn’t be bothered waiting. But then I spotted a lady using the taxi-phone at Woolies. so when she went outside to wait, I asked her where she was going, and whether or not she’d mind sharing a cab. She said sure, and within 2 minutes a taxi arrived. Now normally, you’d all be saying “yeah… so what” – but the lady was in a wheelchair.

She actually reminded me of someone I know – Fiona M is her name (mum & dad would know her). Not because of the wheelchair, but because she was very caring, friendly, and she looked a bit like Fiona. But the taxi driver wasn’t very helpful – and he didn’t make life easy for the lady (she did shake my hand and we exchanged names, but in my typical brain-fart style, I forgot it within seconds). He didn’t park close enough to the kerb to allow the lady to move from her wheelchair into car (although he did move it closer after the lady suggested it would make life easier), and he seemed annoyed to have to put her single bag of groceries into the boot (I offered to help the lady, but she said it was alright). I dunno, it just didn’t seem like he wanted to help, or to be there. Which wasn’t fair, because I don’t think this lady chose to be in a wheelchair. I don’t think anybody does… so why make life harder for someone who already does it tough?

I live about 2 minutes drive down the road from Oxford Street, so I was dropped off first – I gave the lady some money, but she said for me to keep it (disabled persons get cheap fares anyway). So to the lady in the wheelchair – thank you for allowing me to share a taxi with you. We were complete strangers, but she was lovely enough to allow me to share the ride home. And to any cabbies out there who think it’s a bother and a pain in the arse to deal with people who are disabled, please try (or at least pretend to) do your best and not disadvantage these lovely people any further with your attitude and lack of help.