I am never invisible, even in a city where to be a freak is to be invisible in a sea of other freaks.
I swear to god I almost started asking rando asshats, who decided to stop and stare yesterday at me as I tried to do my groceries, if they wanted me to do a trick? Because having my way repeatedly blocked by slack-jawed assholes is pretty annoying.
I'm just some disabled dude in a wheelchair and a leather jacket, really not on the weirdo priority list. I even asked Bot if I looked sicker than usual or something and she's like, 'Not more than usual, but there's been a weird creepy vibe out here all morning.'
We were in our old neighborhood doing errands. I am used to being approached/accosted/grabbed/whatever and I always have been, but the stopping-staring-blocking my way was kinda new and getting REALLY disconcerting, like half the folks out there were zombies.
@paris That's a shame that people behave like that. I wonder if that would happen to you in Austin. People walk down the sidewalk in costumes or lingerie all the time and nobody even seems to notice.
@admiral I live in Vegas and people do that (and plenty more) here, too.
And they probably would in Austin, I have never been invisible anywhere I've been. Bot can back this up, folks have always beelined for me when I am in public, even before the wheelchair. Usually I don't mind, but yesterday was excessively weird. Maybe it was meth day or something.
And yes, I can be standing in the midst of a bunch of crazily-clad street performers and still get accosted/stared at/grabbed/etc, it's happened repeatedly on the Strip.
I deffo have the old White Wolf flaw 'eerie presence' and the attendant attracting of strangeness that it causes.
@paris Ugh, this makes me so mad!
It drives me mad when adults/teens stare at my brother (he's a quadraplegic with no use of his hands and wrists, and some limited use of his arma) but don't bother to actually try to speak to him.
It also bothers me when they go to pet his service dog despite the vest that asks them politely not to. Even worse is when he asks them to stop they then DON'T look at him or apologize or anything. It's like he isn't even there.
Worst of all is when kids come and are completely enthralled by him and his service dog WANT to talk to my brother, but their parents pull them away and whisper for them to leave my brother alone but don't speak to him themselves. Brother LOVES answering every question for every kid that wants to ask. He video chats into my classroom every year to speak to my kids about having disabilities and it's the highlight of his year. Adults can be serious jerks though.
@silverfox said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
@paris Ugh, this makes me so mad!
It drives me mad when adults/teens stare at my brother (he's a quadraplegic with no use of his hands and wrists, and some limited use of his arma) but don't bother to actually try to speak to him.
Mm-hmm. Just that dead-eyed staaaare. Bot and I have learned to not let our assistants stay right beside us when we're speaking at an event/signing anything/etc because people will talk to them and not us about us and our book/etc.
It also bothers me when they go to pet his service dog despite the vest that asks them politely not to. Even worse is when he asks them to stop they then DON'T look at him or apologize or anything. It's like he isn't even there.
This, so much this. Our service dog now barks when someone touches her without being introduced. We have not discouraged this. And folks get so outraged about it! Fortunately security is always understanding when we say WHY she made noise (usually one big bark): she's on a leash, so in order for that interaction to happen, the other person had to come over.
Otoh, she is now jumpy when people pass close behind her (when we're sat at a restaurant), so we usually ask to be sat where she can be against a wall or tucked back against a pillar or directly between B and I.
Worst of all is when kids come and are completely enthralled by him and his service dog WANT to talk to my brother, but their parents pull them away and whisper for them to leave my brother alone but don't speak to him themselves. Brother LOVES answering every question for every kid that wants to ask. He video chats into my classroom every year to speak to my kids about having disabilities and it's the highlight of his year. Adults can be serious jerks though.
Yeah, parents are often weird about it. Kids do sometimes ask rude and annoying questions, but they're kids; it's when the parents ask that it's a problem.
What I don't like is kids just grabbing my dog and the parents being ok with it. She's a service dog, so yes, she's socialised, but this has happened so often that she really does not like it and gets very edgy, and they completely ignore her attempts to back away. Then the parents get offended when I intercede.
They never did this to my other service dogs, but she's small (she's 55 lbs but she looks half that size) and has very big expressive eyes, so it seems to compound the 'aww I need to pet her' even when her vest very clearly says 'do not pet'.
We rarely have a problem with introducing her properly, but so few people ask.
I suspect that she'd get less attention if she did NOT have a service dog vest. I wonder if the increasing awareness about service dogs from facebook videos and stuff has made this worse.
So much. When I am with my brother I deliberately avoid looking other people in the eye when he is trying to engage with them. Last time we were in a shop replacing his Camelpack and I straight up refused to answer their questions because they kept asking me and not my brother. It was his business they were getting! TALK TO HIM. I'll be his hands but I will not enable people to ignore him.
@silverfox Yeah!
@admiral Since this is Vegas and tangenting to the service dog discussion, she even got accosted by a dude in a taco bell hot sauce costume as we were heading somewhere. She was NOT enthusiastic about this (he jumped at her and waved his arms) and she slammed on the brakes and stared in horror at him. I had to yell at him that she's clearly a service dog and wtf was he thinking?
So even the weirdos are being weird.
I truly wanted to have to spend probably a couple of hours picking chunks of purple pastel out of my cream colored carpet fibers, before I can pre treat the demon summoning circle that my 4 year old drew on the living room floor. (I'll be renting a carpet cleaner tomorrow).
No really. Totally that's what I wanted to do with my time tonight. 
@mietze said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I truly wanted to have to spend probably a couple of hours picking chunks of purple pastel out of my cream colored carpet fibers, before I can pre treat the demon summoning circle that my 4 year old drew on the living room floor.
I mean, the silver lining is that clearly the kid is a prodigy; it's nice to see aspiring young cultists starting their careers early. Just think, by the time they're 7, they'll probably have at least one imp bound as a familiar!
a.k.a. Packetdancer (or "Pax" for short)
Just make sure they only summon a great old one while you're home. Don't want that being handled by the babysitter.
@tinuviel At least that way the state of the carpet is the least of your worries!
Waking up with a headache.
Waking up with a headache.
Sorry for the double post. (I bet we could get up to like, five posts today. it seems to be a common thing amongst us.)
Waking up.
@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Waking up.
I mean, beats the alternative.
@insomniac7809 said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Waking up.
I mean, beats the alternative.
Some days, like when it's going to be a hundred and ten degrees and I have to keep genetic aberrations that are allegedly my children entertained with our internet going down faster than a Kardashian...
He/Him
I know most new year's resolutions aren't going to be followed. Everyone knows this.
But dammit it'd be nice if companies didn't capitalize on it to take out even the hope we'll do something good for us to squeeze an extra buck out of us.
There are at least two ads on the radio on my commute that seriously grind my gears - one of them a BBQ restaurant chain literally going "you COULD go to the gym but that's hard! But you know what's easy? Our all-you-can-eat wings!" and another saying "your diet plan can wait for another month, try $4 for 5 chocolate bars!"
Motherfuckers.
This all reminds me of a McDonalds ad last year which literally went "you could pay $10 to go to a museum... but that's boring. Have some McNuggets!".
We can let ourselves down quite well, dammit, we don't need help telling us it's okay to aim super low and we'll fail anyway so why even bother?
Am I the only one that can't RP when their fingers are cold?
At what point did this become a thing? Where I'm inside and my hands are so cold that they're stiff and even writing this run on sentence which has now turned into a test of my dexterity which I'm failing because of how many times I've had to pause and backspace i
When did I get OLD?
is that about being old?! my fingers are always cold when I'm keyboarding it up. I got giraffe arms, my heart gives up on putting blood in them
Poor circulation is a terrible beast.
@insomniac7809 said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Waking up.
I mean, beats the alternative.
Some days, like when it's going to be a hundred and ten degrees and I have to keep genetic aberrations that are allegedly my children entertained with our internet going down faster than a Kardashian...
