Birds of a Feather

by Dean Kramer
November, 2007

I have a friend who used to hand out imaginary “Stupid” signs to people she felt deserved them. I always felt a little sorry for the people she imagined giving these signs to. I tend to over identify with the heedless klutzes of the world and I figured the poor people couldn’t help doing whatever they’d thoughtlessly done. 

But this week I found myself with a Stupid sign to hand out. Leaving Cripple Creek, I went to the supermarket to do my weekly shopping. This week was a little special in that I had earned enough store rewards points for a free turkey.

After parking the car and staggering into the store with my trekking poles I headed, as usual, for the electric scooters that are kept for disabled shoppers. The scooters are parked in the vestibule where shopping carts are stored. There’s a sign by the scooters that says “For Our Disabled Customers Who Would Like a Lift”. 

But one can only be mildly disabled if one wants to use these scooters. They are plugged into the wall in such a way that one has to be quite flexible and strong in order to unplug one for use.  Of course I could always get a store employee to come unplug one for me but then I’d have to walk all the way to the Service Desk. If I could do that regularly I could probably shop on foot.

So each week I bend over and stretch my hand toward the plugs in the wall trying to figure out which cord goes to which scooter, there being more than one. Then I pull and pull to get the plug out of the wall. Each week it springs free suddenly, throwing me off balance and affording me a weekly bruise as my hand smashes into the side of the scooter.

This week I was about to get on the scooter and had already placed my trekking poles, PDA, and fanny pack in the basket when I noticed that the shopping carts had been parked in a long column beside the scooters in such a way that one could never actually drive a scooter away from the charging area.

I thought about disfiguring the sign so that it would read “For Our Disabled Customers Who Would Like to Sit and Dream of Shopping Here”. I thought about going home. I even thought about shopping at Wal-Mart where attendants actually bring you a cart while demanding that you have a nice day.

Instead, with a sigh, I took my stuff out of the basket and prepared to hike to the service desk where I would hand out my first ever Stupid sign.

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Once, long ago, Twink was traveling with her mother and they stopped at a crowded highway rest area with a concessions building. Twink went to use the restroom while her mother browsed the snack offerings. Too late, Twink realized that the stall she’d chosen had no toilet tissue. “No problem”, she thought, “I’ll ask the person in the next stall to hand me some.”

“Excuse me,” Twink said to the feet she could see in the next stall, “I have no paper. Could I trouble you to pass me some?” But the person did not respond. “Hello?” Twink said a little louder, “Can you pass me some toilet paper?” Still, she got no response.

Twink is not the most patient person and she was getting irked. “Hey!” she yelled, “I’m in the next stall! I need some toilet paper for pity’s sake! WHAT ARE YOU, DEAF???” The only response she received was to hear to commode flush and the door bang open as the person left the stall and, shortly, the restroom.

When Twink finally returned to her mother she described the event. She was very angry at being ignored. Paranoia about strangers in public restrooms is well and good, perhaps but “The woman acted like she didn’t even hear me.” Twink complained.

“Well,” her mother returned, “there was a whole busload of deaf people here while you were in there. They were all signing to one another. She was probably with them.” Twink felt like a bit of an idiot, and she and her mom had a good laugh over it.

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Back at the supermarket I had worked up a head of steam as I hauled myself to the service desk. “I need to use one of the scooters to pick up my free turkey,” I said with some heat, “and the scooters are totally parked in by the shopping carts.” The store employee was sympathetic. She walked with me back to the vestibule and began shifting the shopping carts around while I sat waiting on the scooter.

“Whomever set this arrangement up sure wasn’t THINKING very well!” I said. I was  about to make a sarcastic comment involving “turkey” and Stupid signs when the store employee told me that the parking of scooters and the shopping carts is taken care of by an outside contractor. The contractor runs a sheltered workshop employing the intellectually disabled. Oops.

Okay, so I’m not the only disabled person in the world. Some of the employees at the supermarket are also disabled.  And at my supermarket, people with intellectual disabilities are in charge of making sure mobility equipment is available to people with physical disabilities. Who knew? I handed my first ever Stupid sign to myself.

TheThanksgiving holiday is about here and I have a lot to be thankful for. I live at Cripple Creek. I can still drive to the supermarket. The supermarket has scooters I can ride while shopping and, thus seated, I bought enough there this year to qualify for a free Thanksgiving turkey.

Still, I'm hoping one of the able-bodied store employees will help the intellectually disabled cart and scooter wranglers to remember to leave the scooters accessible for gimps like me. After all, I'm headed for enough rewards points for a free Christmas turkey, too.