My BADD

I am in a room.

A hotel room.

Again.

There is a sign on the wall. One I've never seen before. It's gold. With black letters. It has a message for me. "Staff will relocate furniture upon request." When I saw it I was a bit shocked. I travel a lot. I stay in a lot of hotels. Accessibility is what they say it is. What they've got they've got. The implication is that as far as they are concerned, they've adapted to me us, now I we need to adapt to them. The idea of people with disabilities being different, or having different needs, isn't taken into the equation.

But that sign.

One I've never seen before.

Says something different. It says, 'Hey, we're willing to adapt to YOU.'

Here I am in a room with a king bed with room enough to roll around the bed in my wheelchair. Rolling through the door into the room is easy because the door is wide enough and, the transition from floor to floor between hall and room is completely flat - a rarity. The bathroom has a tall toilet with bars and a roll in shower. Underneath the beside tables are small motion sensor lights that make it so that you don't have to turn a light on to be able to see the pathway to the bathroom. The curtains open and close on an electric switch so you don't have to push and pull and get curtains caught in chair wheels.

And they've got a sign. Offering to move the furniture if you need it.

There's a chair, a low one, with the kind of legs designed to fit well into Elephant Feet - in fact, it's in them now, so I have a comfortable chair to transfer into. The bed is fitted into a headboard that has a natural place for me to put my hand when I need extra lift to get up from sleep. My wheelchair has a place to sleep at night without being folded up. It can sit at the desk and wait for me. There's room enough to have it accessible all the time.

And they got a sign. Offering to move the furniture if you need it.

I think the sign is the thing. I've always said that the greatest barrier is attitude. It's easier ramp a curb than it is to ramp an attitude. I think the moment they hired someone to design this room, who started, or ended, with that sign, maximum accessibility was inevitable. When someone has the desire for accessibility to be a real experience for a real person ... they move from 'this is what we got' to 'let us adapt for your needs.'

What I want on this day, Blogging Against Disablism Day is to live in a world where there is a sign, "We will welcome all, equally."

I don't think I'll ever see that sign posted. But I'll be looking and hoping to see signs that the sign is tacked up in the most important coffee room of all, the one in the far corner of people's consciousness.