A dear friend of mine has read these texts I'm casting upon the web and have asked for a bit more daily, routine, concrete content. As much as I love abstractions, I guess she's right, and the average reader might like to see things in a more down to Earth fashion. So I'll start with the first one that popped out in my head.
I currently work for Google at a really international team, which provides me the chance to travel abroad more or less often (more to come on this part as well). In one of these trips I went to Munich, Germany. It was already weekend and I thought about going out and have some fun (as a handsome young foreign guy would love to do on a Saturday evening). So off I went to the place recommended by the hostess at my hotel. It was a Mexican restaurant-bar, which is not my favorite food anyways. But what a hell, when in Germany, why not go to a Mexican bar?
Transportation in Europe is quite amazing compared to my South American Megalopolitan standards. Metro took me quite close to the place. Plus, believe it or not, a cab in Germany richest city is much cheaper than in my hometown São Paulo. When I got to the bar, it was quite packed, warm and noisy. The young handsome and south american part of me loved that. But reality check quickly made me refrain from my earlier mentioned young handsome guy identity to the one of the disabled fellow that has a lot of trouble in walking in crowds (some idiotic and yet interesting effect of cerebral palsy is that learned gait adaptation mechanisms can fail under physical or emotional circumstances, as much as the other motor coordination control gained in 20 years of physical therapy).
So there I was, trying not to trip on people, and politely reach the bar for maybe getting something to drink. Luckily I really like beer, but even if I didn't, no other drink would come in a package that would avoid spilling stuff in the crowd.
Of course I'd as usual refrain from eating, because that would demand too much from my motor coordination, killing the last bits of enjoyment I could get from that situation my friends in Brazil would have loved to be into. When I finally managed to swim the crowd under critical eyes that treated me like some drunk scumbag everytime I've lost balance and touched someone unintentionally (even though I hadn't even reached the bar yet), there was still the matter of being understood by the bartender in the midst of all that noise.
But again luck was on my side, and the German for "a beer please" is really straight forward. The young German bartender took a few minutes to bring me my beer, but I was ok with it since there were many other people ordering at the same time in the middle of that fake Mexican chaos.
When my beer finally came, it was time for reaching for the money in my wallet. Usually I don't use money, I always go for cards, but for some reason (maybe one of those illegal rules bars love to institute) I needed to pay in cash. Well, you know it can be hard to distinguish foreign money bills in the dark and with people pulling you around for getting somewhere. All that must have made me extra slow in getting the money, because when I paid, the guy just threw the change as if I had called his mother a whore or something like that.
I felt I needed to do something about it. Of course not throwing the full bottle on his head, which was the first thing that crossed my mind, but something civilized and adequate. Since I was in a rich and civilized country, my choice was to look for the place manager and make a complaint. I'm not quite sure what was the outcome I was expecting from that complaint. Probably an apology, or something similar.
There was a woman who appeared to be giving orders to the bar crew so I thought either she was the manager or at least knew who the manager was. I've approached her and asked if she was the manager. She said no and dismissed me as if I was some sort of homeless guy asking for money in front of the bar. My heart was pumping like crazy, and now I felt I'd need an extra bottle to break in that sorry woman's head.
Maybe with that in the back of my head, I came to a lovely young waitress and ordered another beer. She was sweet, delicate and beautiful and I felt like asking about the manager. She confirmed the manager was the woman I've approached minutes ago. That was it. There wasn't a place for me to seat, it was too hard to get a drink, and people would star at me as if I was drunk or drugged. So not that much fun for me there.
I thanked the young waitress for talking to me like a human being and wrote a review on trip advisor. Of course I didn't get any answer, much less an apology from anyone related to the bar.
And at the time, this sort of situation would be extremely upsetting. Because I never thought how much of a jerk the guy and the old woman had been back there. I was mad at life and God, and myself to be disabled and thus not be able to have fun on my Saturday night in Germany.
My goal with this text is not to make anyone feel sorry for me or to show how frustrating it can be to be disabled even being young, healthy, and having money to spend. What I want to show is how much disrespect and distress someone with a disability can find regularly, even in a very rich, educated and civilized country. Also disturbing is how the people causing this distress will get away with that as if they haven't done anything wrong. They can always say they didn't know. Plus, I wasn't physically hurt and I got the beers I've paid for. Experience was shitty but I guess this is what's expected from disabled people life to be like. Still I can't find a good rational explanation for that to be the case. Maybe I should measure my cranium or invent other stupid meaningless number for the situation to make sense.
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