Able-bodied people just love to use the wheelchair-accessible stalls in public bathrooms. From my observations, it seems that people tend to choose the accessible stall when they will be spending a relatively long amount of time there. Maybe they get claustrophobic pooping in a regular stall. I don’t know, and I don’t really care either. All I know is that yesterday, I really had to pee and a rude AB made me wait.
I was at the gym that I am trying out and will probably join. It was Sunday morning, so very few people were there, and the women’s locker room had about 3 people in it. When I got there I had to pee pretty bad, but the accessible stall was taken. The three other, regular-sized stalls were empty, and they were most likely empty when this woman came in and selected the accessible stall. After I sat there for a few moments, I realized she was probably there to take a crap, or perhaps do something else time-consuming- it was really quiet and she didn’t seem to be going anywhere. I briefly considered that maybe I should wait elsewhere- after all, I wouldn’t want someone waiting, listening to me poop- but I realized that I wanted to make her as uncomfortable as possible, and I definitely wanted to be there when she came out. People tend to feel bad, or at least they seem as such, when they come out of an accessible stall to find me waiting.
So I waited. I waited several minutes until she was finally done, by which time I really had to pee. She came out, saw me there…and didn’t say a word. If she had said sorry, like most people do, I wouldn’t be writing about this right now. But the fact that she saw that I had been waiting for her able-bodied ass to use the one stall that my crippled ass can get into, and said nothing, pissed me off. And it’s not like she didn’t see me; she held the stall door for me. I wanted to yank it out of her hand and say “thanks for nothing, bitch”…but I’m too nice.
Waiting to use the accessible stall in a public bathrooms is one of the more minor annoyances of using a wheelchair. Don’t think that I’m all bitter because I had to hold it for five minutes. But it’s just another example of the ignorance and self-absorbed behavior that many able-bodied people display all the time. What’s an able body good for when it houses a closed mind?
Maybe it was the same person who did a similar thing to me on Friday at a Phillies game. Except the woman who was in the accessible stall was right a head of me going in! There were at least 6 other stalls open at the time. I don’t get it either.
By: Penelope on May 4, 2008
at 6:35 pm
Ugh. I always debate about whether to wait in line when I’m just waiting to use ONE stall, when everyone else in line can use any stall…people like the woman you mentioned make a good case for just cutting everyone!
By: baliwhat on May 5, 2008
at 4:17 pm
Aww, I’ve used the wheelchair-accessible before. I feel kinda bad now. I can definitely say that if I saw someone waiting to use it when I came out, I’d apologize profusely and feel guilty for a long time.
By: Andrea on May 5, 2008
at 8:28 pm
Don’t feel bad, just make up for it in the future
And spread the word. You can be an able-bodied Ambassador of Wheelchair Bathroom Stall Defense.
By: baliwhat on May 5, 2008
at 10:53 pm
I was at the airport in Miami a few years ago and a girl was unpacking her suitcase in the disabled stall! I had just gotten off a flight that was a couple of hours and had pre-boarded, waited a long time for the aisle chair and then finally found a washroom. I thought my bladder was going to explode and she wasn’t coming out so we had to rush through the airport to find another washroom all the while hoping I wasn’t going to end up peeing myself!
By: WildKat on July 10, 2009
at 12:35 am