I said I was sorry!

 

I just snapped. Literally and figuratively, snapped.


I don't know why, I got up in the morning after a good nights sleep. Joe and I had breakfasted while watching 'Longmire' on Netflix. We decided to get out early to get the shopping done so we can avoid the crowds. Joe, knowing full well the experience of shopping with me, "We can avoid all those people who resent the space you need for your chair." I said, not knowing I was predicting the future, "You can't avoid those people, some of them will have gotten up early too."

Putting the onions in my shopping bag, I headed to the end of the aisle needing to make a sharp right to go down to pick up some tomatoes. At the end of the aisle, there had been some kind of accident, someone had dropped something and part of the floor was covered in, what looked to be Thousand Island dressing. I remember remarking that there were a lot of islands, but 'thousand' was a stretch. I was near the end of the passageway, made narrow by those 'slippery when wet' signs and the cones with the picture of someone falling. A woman with a big cart turned and faced me, she clearly wanted to go through the same passageway that I had just traversed. I could not back up because there was someone right behind me.

I asked, nicely, "Could you just let me pass?" She backed up resentfully, so I threw in a 'sorry'. In response she looked at me with a deep level of anger and impatience. Inside, I heard a little snap. So I turned to her and said, with anger, "I said 'Sorry' what else do you want, you could see that I couldn't back up. What the hell is wrong with using just a little bit of freaking patience." (By the by, I didn't swear, I actually used the word 'freaking') And I rolled on. I was shaking. I don't do that. I don't snap, with anger, at strangers. I just don't. I've had confrontations but not like this, not over something like this.

When I got to the tomatoes I was settling down, Joe came back from getting the pop and water, which need to ride at the bottom of our bundle buggy. I begin to tell him about what happened when the woman came back. She said, "I want you to know that I'm always patient with people like you. And kids. And old people." I said, "You looked very angry and upset when I need to get through where the spill was. Backing up isn't patience, holding your temper is." She left.

Joe and I were near done and she's back again, "I feel sorry for people in wheelchairs and I'm always nice to them, I'm a good person." I said, "Well then, act like one." She stormed away. Joe looked at me questioningly. I said, "All she needed to say was sorry, not all this shit about loving cripples and kids, and I don't need her feeling sorry for me, I need to her be sorry for acting like a jerk."

That was the first one.

Yep, there's more.

Later we went to see the movie 'Chappie' and afterwards we hit the loo. On the way out, I stopped where there was room for me to put my coat on. I was out of everyone's way.  A woman at a table several feet away caught sight of me, turned around and settled in to watch me put my coat on. This happens all the time. Typically, I just move out of sight or have Joe block the view. Another snap. It was so loud I can't believe no one else heard it.  So, I said, loudly, "I'm going to move out of view of those so ignorant that they would stare at someone putting on a coat like they were at a freak show." Again, she looked shocked, then angered, and spun around in her seat. I put my coat on.

I don't do this.

I just don't.

I've never acted this way in public before.

On Sunday, we were out a lot and my old patience for this kind of thing was back. Never confronted or barked at anyone. Not once. I still don't know what happened on Saturday, it just seemed to be a day that I just couldn't take the shit that comes your way when you use a wheelchair or when you are different from others.

Anyone else had a day that they just let go of the reins??