The Best Ad Ever!

One of my best friends sent me this link today. Her email subject was "the best ad ever", and I share it because I agree.

I'm posting this link pretty much on its own because I want people to see it before the link stops working. If anyone can translate the French for me, please let me know what the titles are.

I've always thought that when you see crips in ads, on TV, in movies and in cartoons (ala John Callahan), it will be evidence that we are beginning to make in-roads into the mainstream culture.

Check it out!

http://www.ad-awards.com/inc/video.swf?id=104

10/27/05

per comment from Rebecca, translation of French in above commercial:

Woman at counter: Hello, I would like to open an account.

Writing: The world is harder when it's not designed for you

Voice-over/writing: From now on, the EDF areas are accessible for everyone

Voice-over: When your life lights up: EDF

EDF=Energie de France - National electric/power provider

Thanks, Rebecca!

Down in Front, Part Deux

Last weekend, I went to a concert at the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco. I had been there once before, in the '80s.

There's an elevator, which you reach through a wire fence and a creepy alley. The elevator is tiny, and paneled in some weird fake blond wood. It was so slow that the movement between floors is almost imperceptible.

They have a few small cocktail tables set up along the wall opposite the bar. There's a padded bench for people accompanying crips or people who can't either sit on the floor or stand for 2-3 hours. We sat at one of these tiny tables.

The concert was at 8pm -- we got there at 7pm so that we could get something to eat. They have "pub food" -- it was good, but here's a tip: don't order the nachos if you think you might have to eat them in the dark.

As the venue slowly filled up, people were sitting down on the dance floor in front of the stage -- there were no seats of any kind. Upstairs (not accessible by the elevator) there were balcony seats where you could look down on the stage. This is where you would want to be, if you had the ability to get there.

When the concert started, everyone stood up. Fortunately, I had only paid $25.00 for my ticket.

This was a Dar Williams concert. Prior to this concert, my Dar Williams exposure consisted of listening to some of Dar's acoustic music on a CD that my friend had burned for me. Most of the music at this concert I would characterize as "rock", and the room didn't seem big enough to accommodate the volume of the electronic instruments.

The audience was almost entirely white, and I would guess the average age to be somewhere between 35-40. I found it ironic that most people were forced to stand throughout the whole concert. This was not a group that was rocking out and dancing -- they simply had no where to sit.

This audience was a group of people who are rocketing toward senior citizen status. That doesn't mean that they want to stop going to concerts, but they don't necessarily want to stand for 3 hours, nor do they want their ribs to be vibrating from the volume of the music.

If he was alive, the legendary Bill Graham would be a senior citizen. Don't concert promoters need to start thinking about providing different facilities/amenities, depending on the audience that's likely to attend each concert?

And no, I couldn't see a thing.

Down in Front

From the NY Times, another classic tale of life in Cripland:

A Ticket to Bias

By SUSAN M. LoTEMPIO

Buffalo

I WAS 15 when I first saw the Beatles in concert. That was 1965, long before the Americans with Disabilities Act, so wheelchair seating was rather unpredictable. Lucky for me, the ushers at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens pointed me to the front of the arena and told me to stay there.

"There" was right under Paul McCartney's amplifier. A perfect place to be.

"There" last Friday night at Madison Square Garden, 40 years later, was third row on the floor, a few feet away not just from his amplifier, but from Sir Paul himself. An opening night dream seat, you might assume.

Actually, it was a seat from hell.

The ticket was a Mother's Day gift from my 20-year-old daughter. She and my niece scraped together $278, contacted the Garden's disabled services office, and gave me the best gift I've ever received.

Like the thousands of others there that night, I expected a great show, and a great memory.

At the Garden, though, as I was being shown to my seat (a spot at the end of the aisle where a chair had been removed), I wondered if I would be able to see the stage if the fans in front stood up during the show.

Don't worry, the security guards assured me, they know how to handle the situation. I also asked a representative from the Garden's disabled services office. He said the same thing.

When Sir Paul came out and launched into his first number, everyone stood up, and all I could see was a wall of gyrating backsides.

Too close to the stage to even see the huge monitors overhead, I moved into the aisle to try to get a view. The security guard told me to move back. I asked him where I could go to see around the masses of bodies, and he ordered me to stay where I was.

I tried to remain polite, but that painful sensation I get when I'm being dismissed or patronized swept through me and I yelled back, "These tickets cost $300, and I can't see anything."

"Stay there," the security guard shouted, his face just inches from mine. "If you don't like it, you can leave."

He abruptly took off, returning with the guy from the disabled services office, who looked around and said there wasn't much he could do.

It was then that I snapped. More than forty years of having to enter restaurants through kitchen doors; years and years of being carried up the steps of public schools; and countless times being hauled onto airplanes like a baby in a buggy culminated in this one degrading moment. Who gave them the right to take my money and then take away the concert? Who gave them the right to make me look as if I had done something wrong?

And so I left the concert before the former Beatle had even begun his third song. Yes, someone did ask if I wanted to move to a seat up in the stands. I declined. Was there any other person at that concert - disabled or not - who would sit in the $100 section if her ticket had cost nearly $300? And yes, they did ultimately refund the ticket - but I wanted to see the show more than I wanted the money.

When I asked the Garden staff how they could, in good conscience, sell a ticket that afforded no possible view of the stage for a person who cannot stand up, their response was, "It's an old building."

What about the Americans with Disabilities Act and sight-line regulations, I asked them. Aren't you breaking the law? Again the reply, "It's an old building."

The final blow was when someone from the disabled services office accused me of swapping my ticket to, I suppose, get closer to the stage.

Later, I wondered what Sir Paul would say if he knew what had happened. His wife, after all, is disabled, and maybe she knows what I now know: No matter who you are, no matter how much money you have, no matter how many laws are passed, true equality remains a dream out of reach.

Susan M. LoTempio is an assistant managing editor at The Buffalo News.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/07/opinion/07lotempio.html?oref=login

Survey Sez...

Ok, I need some help here, folks. Any insights would be useful.

Does anybody out there have a "coach"? As distinguished from a "therapist" or a shrink? If so, does anybody discuss disability issues with their coach?

Does anybody know a coach that understands disability issues?

My perception is that coaching is a rising phenomenon, and that it does serve a legitmate niche. My further perception is that most "life coaches" need to have some expertise in disability issues because they've gotta be serving the Boomers, and Boomers are about to be (if they aren't already) hip deep in disability/crip issues.

Anybody?

Crip Tip #1 -- Don't be poor.

If you have a physical disability, it really sucks to be poor. And, if you're well-off, by whatever standards you care to impose, good services and appropriate equipment can make quantum differences in a crip's quality of life.

You may be saying, "duh". But I mean that it really does suck more to be poor if you have a significant physical disability, and it can even become, literally, a matter of life and death.

By disability-standards, I'm wealthy, and I still can't afford a ramp van and have to postpone and somehow finance putting a lift or a ramp on my mobile home. [The city in which I reside has a program through which they will put a lift or a ramp onto your home for free, but my income exceeds the cutoff for this benefit. This is a not-uncommon Catch 22 of us "overachieving" crips.

I do have group health insurance which pays for a quality power wheelchair and its maintenance. I have this because I have a job in a large organization which can afford to offer quality (increasingly a misnomer) health care options to its employees. I have this job chiefly because a) I'm at the top of the persons with disabilities food chain in terms of experience and education; b) I got recruited for this job by someone (who decided I was Satan's Spawn later, but that's another story; and c) I'm really, really good at what I do.

And yes, I'm lucky.

So I lead into this article by Marta Russell, who published this on Znet:

http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2005-09/25russell.cfm

Where's the Common Sense in this Entree?

Rebecca (I Have No Blog, and I Must...Blog) sent me this today:

Food: Eat, Memory: Line of Sight By GABRIELLE HAMILTON from the NY Times Sunday Magazine of 9/25/05.

Ms. Hamilton's article is apparently an excerpt from a forthcoming book called "Don't Try This at Home." This article is an "essay" about her experience with an apparently blind applicant for a job opening in the restaurant she owns and in which she is the executive chef. I encourage you to click on the title and read the article before you read this blog entry.

I don't know whether Ms. Hamilton's actions were prompted by a) painfully sincere political correctness; b) painfully sincere pity for people with disabilities; c) painfully sincere ignorance of the laws governing the employment of persons with disabilities, which would explain her failure to ask the most obvious of questions. Or d) All of the above.

In summary, Ms. Hamilton gave the job applicant a "trail" -- essentially a try-out in the kitchen during a dinner shift. He was applying to be a line cook, and his resume indicated adequate and appropriate experience, according to Ms. Hamilton. She was also impressed with his education -- particularly in the area of philosophy -- and his manner on the phone.

When he showed up, the first thing she noticed was "...that he was blind. His eyes wandered around in their sockets like tropical fish in the aquarium of a cheap hotel lobby." Okay... Colorful description. Is this lurid description of the alledgedly blind job applicant supposed to convince us that Hamilton is not psychotically politically correct?

Gamely, Ms. Hamilton began the interview and found his answers to be appropriate; he knew the jargon of the restaurant biz. Then, when he was shown the menu, "[h]e held it up to his face as if to breathe in its written contents, to discover by inhaling what it said in plain print. I felt more certain than ever when I observed this that he was blind, but naturally doubted myself because obviously the guy had worked in restaurants, something that - though we may joke - really can't and shouldn't be done."

I copied the material in quotes verbatim from Hamilton's essay, and I'm not sure of her meaning. Is Ms. Hamilton saying that it was unreasonable of her to think he had a vision impairment at this juncture? Is she saying that she doubted her observations because it was her professional judgment that he had worked in restaurants before, and therefore, could clearly not be visually impaired? To what is she referring when she says, "something that - though we may joke - really can't and shouldn't be done"? I'm honestly unclear.

Let's break this down.

• If someone has a visible disability, it is permissible for the prospective employer to ask the ostensibly disabled applicant specific, job-related questions as to how they will perform the functions of the job. For example:

1. "You appear to have a pretty severe vision impairment. Is the kitchen where you've worked in the past set up in a special way to accommodate your disability?"
2. Or, "The kitchen is, as you know, a very busy, crowded and dangerous place. Do you have special procedures or use special tools to do your job, in light of your apparent visual impairment?"
3. Or, "To be candid, you appear to be having difficulty reading the menu. If you have a vision impairment, then I need to ask you some questions about how you perform some of the essential functions of this job."

• While it is true that it is illegal, under the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, to discriminate against employees or job applicants on the basis of disability, it is also true that an applicant with a disability must be able to perform the essential functions of the job at hand. The legalese term for this is that the applicant must be "otherwise qualified". Giving this applicant the benefit of the doubt regarding his ability to perform the duties of a line cook was absolutely the correct thing for Ms. Hamilton to do, both morally and legally. Speaking from my own experience, I would not assume that someone who was severely vision impaired - blind - couldn't job, but would have had grave doubts. That said, the disabled applicant must be "otherwise qualified" -- that is, able to do the essential functions of the job, "with or without accommodations", hence the questions I mention above.
• Regardless of the guy's visual status -- the fact that he didn't disclose his situation, particularly and most especially during the "trail", was nuts and completely self-destructive on his part. The law doesn't require a job applicant to disclose their disability until such time as they want/need to request an accommodation, including during the application process [I always ask if the building is wheelchair accessible, before I get there, for example].
• Example of "the right way" to approach a disability issue at work: A visually impaired computer programmer is hired by a company. When she shows up at work, she mentions that she has a visual impairment [meaning something more serious than the kinds of impairments the rest of us wear glasses for], and that she needs a screen enlarging utility on her computer. If she is smart, she will also have medical documentation of her vision disability (which the employer can require), the name of the screen enlarging utility she wants to use, and info about how much it will cost, compatibility info and purchasing info. (This last is not necessarily her responsibility -- the employer has an affirmative responsibility to help a disabled employee figure out their accommodations -- but the reality is that if you don't have your shit together, your job viability is going to be severely limited by factors other than their initial disability.)

Ms. Hamilton handled this situation abominably, whatever her "well-intentioned" motivations. Her politically correct programming clearly overcame her innate intelligence and business acumen. (I'm assuming that she has the latter, if she's running a successful restaurant...) She seems to know that she handled it badly, but it is unclear to me if she understands the decision points at which she could have done things differently, and that this guy also screwed up, and not just because he had a disability and shouldn't have applied for a job to work in a busy kitchen.

The other bad actor was the blind guy. I'd love to know his story. Maybe his resume was legit, and he had had the experience he claimed to have. Maybe he had multiple sclerosis and was experiencing an exacerbation that was taking out his vision, suddenly and unexpectedly. It was still his responsibility to cop to it -- either before or at the very beginning of the "trail". Maybe he had lost his vision to diabetes, and hadn't come to terms with the extent to which he was now functionally limited. Who knows?

Maybe he lied about the experience on the resume and was trying to land a job and get his story straight later. If he'd been competent -- gee, sounds like it might have worked. Scary.

Speaking as one who has a) a visible disability; b) experienced employment discrimation over and over again; and who c) has routinely applied for jobs for which I was overqualified, in the hope of just getting any job at all, I will say that this guy is not playing for my team. Crips who behave in this way screw things up for the rest of us, who have to play the credibility game before we ever get to getting our references checked.

"Well, my grandmother couldn't walk. It was sad I guess"

The question -- actually the first question -- was, "What are some of the stereotypes you think of relating to disabilities?" And, "What types of stereotypes do you think might arise for students with disabilities at college?"
It was the first question we were asking candidates to be our new office receptionist.

Before she said, "Well, I grew up around my grandmother who couldn't walk -- it was sad," our erstwhile candidate said, "Oh, stereotypes, I don't know -- I just really don't know any." (It occurred to us later that she might known what "stereotypes" meant, even though she claimed to be really interested in her recent neuropsychology classes...)

I generally hate interviewing people, and this time was no exception (although I do hate interviewing for jobs worse than I hate interviewing others). But, I have to say that, in my almost 48 years, this woman was the most breathtakingly dumb person I had ever encountered in this setting. I mean, wow. I was so taken aback that I got a temporary brainlock, looking down at the questions I was supposed to ask her. My mind was screaming "this is over" and "abort, abort", while my colleagues were looking expectantly at me to barf out the next question.

She was so bad that I would have suspected it was an elaborate "punking", except that I know we're all way to busy around here to set up something like that.

#

Another page in this same folio...

Years ago, I was working with this highly over qualified, intelligent woman, who was working more or less as a receptionist, and I was working as an independent contractor, doing word processing at her company. In the course of conversation one afternoon, I mentioned that because of the appearance of my skin -- which looks really dry and flaky -- combined with a slow and painful gait, I had often experienced discrimination. Socially, in the work place, in school -- you name it.

She was stunned. College-educated, liberal, aware of the Civil Rights Movement, and Women's Movement -- and was stunned that persons with visible disabilities would experience discrimination. I was stunned that she was stunned.

I wonder if she could have answered that "stereotypes" question.

Who's on First, and Is He Driving the Big Brown Truck?

My wheelchair and my the lift on my van both needed repairs at the same time.

My wheelchair's regular maintenance needs are covered by my health insurance, for which I am thankful. I took it in for new tires, batteries, and a new seat cushion, and found out that my squeaky left rear wheel needed a new motor. They ordered it, and it was to arrive in about 5 business days.

The lift on my van, which I hate using for a variety of reasons, was barely getting my wheelchair into the van anymore. It also needed a new motor, but such things are not covered by insurance. You can, however -- and this is a big "tip from the crip" -- use the money from a health care spending account to pay for disability-related equipment and repairs on a car or van. (You can also use this money to pay for disability-related access work on your house/apartment, for things such as grab bars, lifts or ramps, widening doorways, etc.)

So, they ordered the motor, and, because I needed everything to be ready to go by 8/12 (a Friday), because I was going on vacation -- a driving vacation. I said that I would pay extra for them to send the lift motor by 2nd day air, because otherwise it might not arrive on time.

On Monday when I called, nothing had come -- but that wasn't surprising. Tuesday, I was too busy, and didn't call. On Wed. when I called, they had "just found out" that the motor for the wheel on the wheelchair was "backordered" and might not come in time, but it might come on Friday. Oh, and they "forgot" to ask for 2nd day air on the lift motor, but it "should" arrive on Friday also.

Friday morning, I get to the wheelchair vendor/mechanic at 10:30 am; UPS has come, but the truck was so full and disorganized that the guy was going to be coming back -- this from the "customer service" guy at the front desk. So, he doesn't know if either of the parts came.

I call my dad and he takes me to breakfast at the nearby public golf course. We get back to the vendor about 1:30. "Tell me something good." I say to Mr. Customer Service. "I don't know."

"Did the UPS guy come back?"

"No."

I sit and stare out the window for a while, and then I say, "I understand [from what he told me earlier] that the UPS delivery guy isn't the one who loads his truck, so he doesn't know where all the boxes are, but he must have a list of everything he has, right? [I believe this is sometimes called a "manifest", but I don't use this word.] "Did anyone ask him to check his list of boxes to see what had come?"

"I don't know."

Just then the phone rings, and Mr. Customer Service answers. He says, "Uh huh. So it won't be shipped until Monday. And who's that for?" Then he hangs up. I have a bad feeling about it, but hey -- I am not the only customer that they've got. There is no reason, other than the hairs sticking up on the back of my neck, for me to assume that this overheard scenario was about something for me.

About a minute later, Mr. Repair Guy comes out and sits down. "Well, dear," he says, which just makes me want to hit him in the head with a baseball bat, 'cause he's lied to me before, and I never know when he's telling me the truth, if ever. "The motor for your wheel on your chair won't be here until next week, but I've done blah blah blah to it and it should be okay for your vacation."

"And what about the motor for the lift?" I ask.

"It came this morning, and Mr. Van Repair Guy just finished installing it."

"It came before I got here this morning?"

"Yes, you're all set."

So -- back at 10:30 am, Mr. Customer Service either lied or didn't know what he was talking about when he told me that they didn't know if my stuff was on the truck. The UPS guy had dropped off the lift motor, and wasn't coming back that day because he didn't have any more deliveries there.

#

The insidious thing about wheelchair/durable medical equipment (DME) vendors is that there aren't that many of them -- at least not like car mechanics. I go to these people because they are the devil I know, and I have literally never been able to find a crip to give me a good recommendation for another outfit.

They overcharge like crazy on the stuff that gets paid for by insurance -- but their suppliers overcharge too, for the same reason.

I've been dealing with this place for years. The staff turns over pretty frequently. I always call a lot to check on the status of things because they will often find out something is "backordered" and not call me, or, conversely, finish the work on something and not call either.

In order to get the real story during this latest adventure, I would have had to question 2 0r 3 people before I got the whole story. I am in the business of service provision myself, and am sensitive to not being too pushy a customer -- it didn't really occur to me that the kid at the front desk (Mr. Customer Service) was either making shit up and/or talking out of his ass when I was trying to get the story on the status of things when I arrived. In fact, I thought the idea of me sitting in the small waiting room, which is where his desk is, would have been extra incentive for him to do everything possible to get me out of there as quickly as possible.

It sort of felt like a bad Seinfeld episode. Where's the Soup Nazi when you need him?

Slave to Beauty

So...I hate washing my hair, because I hate getting my hands wet. It makes my skin more sensitive and makes it even harder to grip things. Wear gloves -- don't even go there.

My latest luxury is going to a beauty parlor, just to have my hair washed -- not dried, not styled, just washed. I've been charged as high as $20 -- I was in LA and was desperate -- and as low as $5. $5 makes me so happy that I usually tip another $5.

Except for today. Today, I left the house intending to head over to the strip mall beauty parlor ("spa pedicures"!) where I got a perfectly satisfactory $5 wash last week. En route, I remembered my sister asking me about the beauty parlor that is here in the park. Yeah, I thought, I should check that out -- it would be even more convenient than the strip mall which is the equivalent of 3 blocks away.

I find the park "beauty parlor", which is a 10 x 12 room in a cinder block building that also houses the laundry, restrooms, and a car wash. The owner/operator is a nice, middle aged white woman who won't let me get a word in edgewise.

I mean, I can sympathize with her -- here's freakgirl on wheels at her door. She says, "$5", and I think, "score!"

I sit down at the sink, and launch into my usual, somewhat dumbed-down description of my disability -- "body makes skin too fast, it doesn't break down properly, yada yada". I can tell she's not listening. I say, "there's stuff on my scalp, but I don't want you to try to do anything about that -- I'm just going for clean hair."

She asks me if I use a special shampoo -- I say, "no". I lean back and she starts running the water.

And then I feel a big raw spot open up on my scalp. I think, "how'd that happen?" She hadn't even started soaping my hair, much less scrubbing too hard. I think, "I must have done it myself when I combed my hair?"

Rinsing. Another rip on the other side. Ouch ouch. "Oh, I'm sorry." Her hose's spout has fucking teeth on it! (Probably feels good on so called normal scalps.) "I'm not wanting to get my scalp cleared -- those are raw spots now." All in a perfectly polite, reasonable tone, I swear to god. I knew she was nervous, and perhaps that's why she wouldn't listen to me when I tried to explain how not to hurt me.

Just another day in the neighborhood.

Just Another Day in Paradise (aka Cripville)

10:45 am Casey calls to cancel the plan for this evening. He says he feels lousy. Ever since Wed. when he called me late in the evening to confirm plans that we'd made a couple of weeks ago, I'd had the feeling he wanted to cancel. He'd planned a bunch of errands for the afternoon, and was talking about making dinner, and then, going to play poker at someone's house. I was invited to go to play poker.

Sat. morning, he says he feels lousy. "My legs don't work." Casey has MS. After many years of not progressing, Casey is finding it harder and harder to walk. He has started using a cane. But, he should probably be using a power wheelchair or a scooter -- not probably, he should be, at least when he's not at home.

He's started an experimental chemo treatment for his MS symptoms. It made him really, really sick -- but he said he felt some improvement afterwards.

It is painfully ironic that I know Casey through our shared careers in disability rights advocacy. I have been disabled all my life, and have just decided to try and pursue my idea of creating a new profession: disability strategist. A disability strategist would help people with disabilities cope with both the emotional and practical aspects of having a disability.

But, I can't get Casey -- who knows better, on some level -- to see that using mobility aids may well be better than destroying his health (which is good, apart from the MS).

4:30 pm Casey calls to say that the poker game has been moved to his house, and is on for 8pm. I say I will come.

4:50 I leave the house to get on the light rail, which runs right by the mobile home park where I live. I am in my power wheelchair. I park my chair in the driveway because I don't have a lift on my house. I priced building a ramp about 6 months ago -- $5,500 minimum. Sunnyvale, the city in which I live, provides free lifts or ramps to residents who meet their income guidelines. I make too much money to get any assistance from the city -- it is an all or nothing proposition, unfortunately.

I hate using my van, which has a cheap (which is to say $2,500) lift for my wheelchair. The lift can barely lift my chair, and my chair barely fits in the available space. Since moving to my mobile home, I use the light rail and commuter train 85% of the time, mostly to avoid using my van.

I had to take my wheelchair in to have maintence done on it earlier in the week, and then I went to work, and left my van there. So, in order to get to Casey's, who lives in San Francisco, I need to get my van from work.

The light rail gets me to my train station connection in plenty of time for the 5:19 pm train. I wait in the appointed place for wheelchair passengers, which is a big white wheelchair "handicapped" symbol, painted in a big blue square on the pavement. There is a space like this at every CalTrain Station.

The train comes into the station. It is one of the newer "bullet" trains. On these new trains, instead of the hydrolic lifts on the older trains, they've built cement ramps that you use to get up on a raised platform. Then, the conductor gets a folding aluminum ramp to cross the gap between the platform and the train car. (The first time I saw this, I laughed out loud.) So, I go up on the raised platform and wait for the conductor to come. But, he doesn't come.

I know the engineer must have seen me, because I was waiting in the assigned place. I look down the platform and see a conductor hanging out of one of the open doors -- I think, if I can see him, then he can see me. I also think that they have seen me because the door is lined up in the needed position for me to board (once they get the ramp).

A couple of passengers look at me inquiringly and say, "is somebody coming to help you?" I say, "they better be", jokingly. I hear the recorded warning, "the doors are about to close" -- I wave my arms in the direction of the engineer, I wave my arms in the direction of the conductor I saw. The train starts moving -- and pulls out of the station, leaving me on the platform.

I am livid. I have been wrangling with CalTrain for over a year over their policy about only 2 wheelchairs per train allowed. That's 2 wheelchairs per the entire multi-car train. They tell their conductors that it is "federal law" that they can only take 2 wheelchairs. In fact, the law says that they must have room for a minimum of 2 wheelchairs. There are a variety of party lines I've heard from various CalTrain officials -- what it really comes down to is that they don't want to delay the trains by having the loading & unloading periods extended if they allowed more wheelchairs. (The only reason there is a downtime is that they have not upgraded the trains or the stations so that a wheelchair user can just get on or off the train by themselves, which is how it is on the light rail. On the light rail, I get on and off the train as quickly as any other passenger -- sometimes more quickly -- and each car has space for 2 wheelchairs.)

I called and insisted on speaking to a supervisor and insisted that they take a report.

I eventually get to Palo Alto, and then on campus. I go inside my building to use the rest room, and there I experience yet another frustration.

My building is only 3 years old, and I actually had the opportunity to participate in the design of our floor, which we made as wheelchair accessible as possible. This includes wide doorways and hallways, power doors, multi-level countertops in the kitchen, etc. I want to stop in the kitchen to get soda before I load my wheelchair into my van, and find that my boss has locked the door, again.

A few months ago, she arbitrarily started locking the door to the kitchen because people were leaving their dirty dishes in the sink. Even after I pointed out to her that locking this door seriously decreased my access to the kitchen -- if you are driving a power chair with one hand and carrying anything else in the other, getting a key out to unlock the door is a major pain in the ass. Even though my boss is supposed to be on vacation, she must have stopped by and locked the door on her way out.

I unlock the door, and leave it unlocked, and get my soda, grinding my teeth to powder.

At my van, I go through the process of getting my wheelchair in the van. This involves getting out of the chair (I can walk -- my disability, ichthyosis, causes severe blistering on my feet if I walk), taking the arms off, folding the back down, and hooking up the wheelchair to the lift. The lift lifts up the wheelchair crane-style. I have to jockey the wheelchair in because the space is only barely big enough, and the straps slowly slip down while in motion. It is a hideous, frustrating process and it makes me want to hurt somebody.

7:30 pm I get on the road to drive to Casey's house, where I lose $30 at poker. I had a good time, but seeing Casey, and seeing how he is not dealing with his disability, made me get a knot in my stomach.

Just in case anyone is wondering, if I had the money, I would:

1) buy a ramp van;
2) put a ramp on my house.