Five-Star Disability

Do you like to get a free lunch?

With costs rising for almost everything; food, parking, mayonnaise, Hot Wheels, gasoline, et al, it is nice to have someone else pay for your lunch. Right?

Recently, my wife and sons were treated to a lunch, someone bought them fast food.

And, the very next day, I was also given a free lunch at a sandwich bar. I had funds in bank, but didn’t have the right card!

Annnnd… a few days later, my boys and I enjoyed a free pizza dinner. This time we had funds, but they were locked, and I couldn’t transfer. But, hey, the pizza guy came, gave us our dinner, accepted a tap from my son, then left. Ten minutes later he was back… we tapped and inserted to no avail …able funds!

Oh the list goes on:

My bank card would not work, and I was holding up the line at Tim Hortons when a student tapped her bank card; I made sure to turn and thank her before I rolled off, embarrassedly.

Again, my bank card was still not working, when I had to buy lunch for my kid; luckily the cashier knows me, and said get out, but I detected a smile behind that blue mask she wore.

I hate not being able to pay, I am not a thief, a swindler, I have funds, I can pay! Yet, the bank card is not really my friend.

And don’t get me started on those ubiquitous card readers!

What the hell… When I’m using my power chair, those card readers are cumbersome at best. Especially when they are screwed onto a stand at an angle, and the stand is at chest level, I cannot see the display. When it is about a foot away from the edge of the counter, on a stand at an angle, I can’t see the readout!

While I prefer to tap and roll away, sometimes the tap doesn’t work, so I gots to insert card, and do the rest… but I am “blind” to what I am doing!

Which I am anyways, 99% of debit readers are either super small, overused, faintly readable. I’ve only seen and used ONE machine that was actually easy to see, large print, and not faded at all! Now, if I could purchase all my food, drink, Hot Wheels, gifts for wife, kids, from a corner store in Central Maple Ridge!

Remember the Sandwich Bar above? Well, the manager in that restaurant went above and beyond to communicate with me being Deaf-Blind: gesturing, writing, drawing (badly), more gesturing, more writing, and finally gesturing again! I was a block away, when the sun broke through the clouds both figuratively and literally; I realized why I did not have funds in my bank, when I actually had the wrong card, and I realized I forgot my sunglasses!

I am not using my disability to get a free lunch, let that be clear! I would, and have, walked away from hamburgers, poutine and coffee because I did not have the funds. I was actually about to leave a new Mary Brown’s when I could not get my bank card to work, thankfully my bank was close by!

So thank you for reading, liking, sharing, donating and eating!