A few COVID related thoughts

[olivermoss]

* With a vaccine in September seeming more and more likely I am tempted to plan for some travel in spring. But even best case scenario it might be a while before we have enough people vaccinated. There have been concerns about medical glass shortages for a while.

A lot of people have something they are looking forward to at the end of this and I don't. But, I really shouldn't be pinning my hopes on that. I don't even know what I can count on right now.

* One thing that drives me nuts about the mask debate, that I don't see brought up, is how people think disability accommodation works. They think not being able to wear a mask is some big 'gotcha' and they get special rights. People's ideas about how much accommodation there is for people with disabilities get is downright nuts.

Let's look at travel for a moment. Every time I've done a long haul train trip I've spoken to at least one person who can't fly due to disabilities. A lot of people can't tolerate being in a coach seat for medically diagnosed reasons.

My knee/back problems don't count as a disability, but if I sit in a coach seat for 6 hours there is a good chance my left knee will lock, my lower back will spasm, I'll be in pain and have trouble walking. This does not get me a free upgrade. If I want enough space to ensure I wont arrive in pain I need to pay for it out of my own wallet. If I don't want to pay, then I am rolling the dice that I can stand and stretch once and hour without the plane's staff hassling me. I have had stewards talk to me about being 'disruptive' for just standing in the aisle once an hour.

If you can't tolerate a plane seat, even for medically diagnosed reasons, you have to pay for an expensive upgrade or suffer. But these damn idiots who don't want to wear a mask seem to think that any problems with a mask entitles them to special treatment and exemptions. That is not even remotely how any of this works.

Want to know how my Dad got my Mom home after she broke a hip and couldn't sit? Did the airlines give my Mom a special bed? Even first class couldn't accommodate her unless she could sit for take off and landing. Their options were to stay in Houston until she could sit or hire a private fucking plane.

I fly a LOT. There are no beds for people who can't sit. There are no special places for people who are in wheelchairs they can't leave. You know how buses have that section of seat that folds up for wheelchairs and scooters? Planes don't have that. Ever seen someone with core stability problems so bad they have to stay in their high back reclining wheelchairs on a plane? Neither have I. They have to travel via van or train. Long haul trains do have special suites and also places to park wheelchairs people can't tolerate being out of.

The sheer lack of understanding of how the world works is boggling, having a problem with masks doesn't mean the world needs to bend over to accommodate you. Even if it is a recognized disability, the world don't care. Lots of people can't shop at a grocery store, all of those people need to find alternate ways to get things. With the whole home delivery trend it's so much easier than it was 10 years ago.

...I didn't mean to rant for so long, but this assumption that people with medical problems and/or disabilities get this level of accommodation drives me up a wall. I've stayed at hotels with no ramps or wheelchair access, in the US! I tend to notice than most since I worked with disabled kids for 10 years, and have also had adult friends with CP or other conditions. But like ... do these people have no elderly relatives? Do they really know no disabled people?

Jesus, to have that sense that the world will bend over backwards to help you if you can claim that disability label.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

must be nice, being abled, just to never know what it's like on the ouchy end of systemic ableism

[olivermoss]

I swear some of these people got angry seeing a wheelchair user be able to skip a line once and never got over it.

[oldtoadwoman]

The sad thing is that I'm willing to bet many of them do know people with disabilities but they just never listen to them (or care).

[olivermoss]

I'd assume that from people having parents and grandparents they'd at least be familiar with age-related disabilities. I try to keep in mind that my level of experience is not the norm but wow, it's amazing how many people are just clueless.

[shipperslist]

Ohh this. This this this. 👏🏻

clueless and horrible

[oldtoadwoman]

Some are genuinely clueless. (How's the George Carlin joke go? "Half the people you know are below average" or possibly Carlin or possibly someone else with the variation "Think of how dumb the average person is and then realize that half the population is dumber than that.")

But some are just willfull dicks.

I'll use a former friend's roommate as an example. I couldn't stand this woman, but she was always there and my friend let her tag along for all our outings, so if I wanted to visit my friend I had to put up with her roommate. I think her name was Sherry if I recall and I'm not even going to bother with a fake name. The thing I resent most about the "Karen" meme is that all the real life Karens that I've known were lovely people. I wish it had been a "Sherry" meme. (apologies to other Sherries)

Things Sherry did:

-Listened to Christian music on her tape deck while simultaneously uttering blasphemies at other drivers.
-screamed those blasphemies because the driver ahead of her was going too slow (so she'd scream and tailgate until they got out of her way)
-screamed those blasphemies because the driver behind her was following too close
(zero regard for her passengers who had done nothing wrong but had to listen to her scream and curse for the whole drive, zero self-awareness that she would call someone an idiot for doing something she herself had done five minutes earlier)

-would pull into a parking lot and curse at the pedestrians who were in her way
("Jesus Christ! What is wrong with these idiots?! Don't they see me driving?!")
-upon parking would wander through the parking lot without looking where she was going and then curse at the drivers who almost hit her
("Jesus Christ! What is wrong with these idiots?! Don't they see me walking?!")
I don't even mean on separate occasions, I mean within seconds of each other.

Sherry suffered from insomnia and would get up and clean at one o'clock in the morning. When I was the houseguest sleeping on the couch she would just walk into the room, flip the lights on, and start moving things around without any attempt to be quiet.

On another occasion, she had an appointment that we all knew about. My sister and I had gone out for breakfast (so that we could talk somewhere without disturbing Sherry and my friend who were still asleep) and when we came back (close to the time Sherry was planning to leave) we entered speaking at a normal volume... this was soon followed by a fluster of activity as it turned out Sherry had overslept (we woke her when we returned) and she had to race to get out to her meeting on time. Despite the fact that our "inconsiderately" waking her up was a good thing (or she would have missed the meeting), she screamed at me later about it.

That was the final straw and I refused to visit my friend again. I'm not visiting you to get screamed at by your evil roommate.

That woman was a human headache. The hypocrisy alone was just mindboggling and I'm not even mentioning some of her other awful qualities.

I guarantee you that if some of these people refusing to wear masks and screaming about it had first heard about masks from a masked TV-evangelist who told them it was the only way to protect themselves from the gay measles, they'd be wearing masks and screaming at everyone to stay 12 feet back. Some of them can only see the world from their own perspective in any given moment and they don't care about other people.

Re: clueless and horrible

[olivermoss]

Yeah, some people are just amazingly self-involved. I don't get it. I almost wish I did.