I really had to go.
But when I arrived at the accessible family room, it was occupied. I waited, patiently. For a very long time. I realize that time slows down when you are having a conversation with your bladder, but in actual literal fact, it was a very long time. I was just started to head over to the elevator to go up to the other one upstairs, calculating my ability to roll and hold at the same time. I watched with envy as people flowed in and out of the other washrooms, no line up there, and began to push. That's when one of the cleaning staff came along. She asked me if I had been waiting long. I said I had.
Instantly she pounded on the door. It opened right away and three teen girls came out of the toilet. The cleaning woman was having none of this. She stopped them and let them know that what they had done was act with pure selfishness. Did they see me a disabled customer waiting for the room? I piped up and said, you know there are only two of these here, using it when you don't need it can cause a disabled person to embarrass themselves.
But the cleaner wasn't done. There followed a lecture and at a certain point I saw the initial shame the girls felt for using the space wantonly turn into anger and annoyance and I knew the cleaner had crossed a line and now the point would become the cleaner and not the original mistake.
That's the thing with advocacy, isn't it?
You need to stop when you've won the moment.
Also, if you are going to take on some teens about misusing a disabled space, you need to get out of the way so that the letter pee remains in the alphabet and not in a puddle..
Hi, my name is Skylar and I'm currently enrolled in the developmental service worker program. For an assignment, we had to pick a blog to follow and reply to, and I chose yours. I find your blogs very eye opening and informative. I think that everyone in my field should take a look at your blog and see things from your perspective. I love your sense of humor and how you capable you are of making light of things. You seem to be a very easy going person and I'm looking forward to reading more of your stories!
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