Unceasing Echoes

Taxi driver: “I dunno mate, you people are an inspiration to us all. Fair play to you. I couldn’t do without my eyesight, no way mate. I’d rather lose anything else, I’d rather lose both my legs than my sight. Fair play to you”   Me: “what about you’re penis?”  

“What’s better, to have always been blind, or to have lost your sight later in life?”   How the f**k would I know.    

Talking to a friend last week about a couple of my posts on the patronising and diminishing ways that disabled people get talked to. He put forward the position that it is their problem and we (disabled people) have a choice as to whether we let it impact on us or not.   In responding, it made me think about where choice lies, what our choices are and whether we can always choose for others’ view of us not to impact on us.   It has led me to  remember plenty of times where for example, failure to listen to me or to take me seriously, not believe I know what I’m talking about or  ignore me, has impacted upon me detrimentally. For   When, in supermarkets, the assistant that is meant to be helping me with my shop doesn’t take me seriously enough to take notice of what I’m asking for, I will not have an easy shopping experience and will most likely get home with numerous wrong items in my bags.   If I find myself in a work situation where a new colleague clearly cannot take me seriously, I

Just crossing my road this morning returning from an early walk and painfully came upon an already large car with a protruding platform at shin height extending for probably a metre from the rear of the car and designed for carrying a number of bikes.   While many rear cycle racks protrude significantly from the back of a vehicle, making them much longer than they appear, this addition was especially sneakily designed.   Naturally impressed at its size, placement and what I could glean of the owner’s character, I was drawn not only to write about it, but also to do a bit of idol research. I found that it is part of the ‘Fuck you’ range of obtrusive cycle racks. As I couldn’t see the image clearly, I wasn’t sure if this model was the ‘Shin Bitch’, or the (slightly cheaper) ‘Trip’o’Twat’ – whichever, it certainly did its job very well this morning.