Hear That, Babe? We’re Legends!

[gay-theprayaway]

I love them and would like for them to murder me with their glow sword thanks.

[image desc bc alt text isn’t working]: a marker illustration of Zer0 from Borderlands from mid chest up. They display a ;) in front of their helmet visor. The background is stripes of blues, teal, and purple. Next to Zer0 is a caption reading “My name is Zer0 / misgender me, you get stabbed / Happy BL3″ [end id]

[penicillium-pusher]

me? I’m a simply guy, I see a pigeon with even the slightest difference in color or pattern than the average pigeon, and I say “wow look at that pigeon!” it’s just who I am

[patrexes]

@queerjewishcrip​

[emmaklee]

[qcrip]

[image desc: text in varied fonts reading “Minimalism is dead!!! Long live tacky extravagance, performative excess, artless luxury, and all forms of opulence for it’s own sake !!! Long live bad taste !!!”]

[pblomgr1]

These are the solutions we need to policing right now. Remember: the problem cannot be solved by technocratic solutions (i.e. body cams, further trainings, etc.) The problem is policing itself.

[queeranarchism]

This is the sort of shit I am talking about when I say we need to only talk about getting rid of police but also about what sort of actual safety could replace it.

And no, it is not enough for this to exist ‘next to the police’. The harm is in the fact that circumstances of personal and interpersonal harm are viewed through the lens of law and punishment. 

The moment we take the concept of laws & punishment completely off the table and start thinking in needs and how to provide them, we become capable of seeing what is needed to achieve actual safety.

[gay-theprayaway]

[image description]

Poster 1 (image of small colorful flags hanging on a string against orange background):

“Your friends are intoxicated & fighting but you don’t want them to get in trouble.

Imagine…

…you call +311 and a crisis intervention team comes to your door.

1 hour later, your friends are sleeping it off at home.

isn’t that public safety?”

Poster 2 (image of a heart within a location drop pin against a purple background):

“You are experiencing a mental health crisis & afraid.

Imagine…

…you call +311 & a first responder trained in mental health comes to your door.

1 hour later, you are in a safe place with your consent, with plans for follow up care.

isn’t that public safety?”

Poster 3 (image of a blocky blue car against a bright green background):

“You don’t realize, but your brake lights aren’t working.

Imagine…

…a city employee signals for you to pull over & says, “Hey -  how about I replace those lights for you right here so no one gets hurt?”

An hour later, both lights work & you’re at home.

isn’t that public safety?”

Poster 4 (an image of a yellow-orange sun against a darker orange background):

“Some folks are sleeping on benches in the park.

Imagine…

…a city employee comes by & checks in to see if they need a place to sleep, food, water, or health care.

An hour later, those who want a different place to sleep have one.

isn’t that public safety?”

Poster 5 (an image of a brain formed of multi-colored triangles against a purplish-pink background):

“Someone is talking to themself on the bus.

Imagine…

…they ride the bus without being bothered.

An hour later, they are at their destination and going on with their day.

isn’t that public safety?”

Poster 6 (an image of a black flashlight outline against a red background):

“Someone seems to be snooping in car windows on your block.

Imagine…

…calling your neighbors who are trained in self-defense & deescalation & approaching the person.

An hour later the conflict is resolved & the person responsible is getting the support they need.

isn’t that public safety?”

Poster 7 (an image of two white hearts within a pink and blue square message boxes against a pink background):

“You are experiencing intimate partner violence.

Imagine…

…texting a number & a trauma informed crisis intervention specialist meets you in a safe place.

An hour later you are working together to make a plan that will keep you safe long term.

isn’t that public safety?”

Poster 8 (an image of a dark-haired person in a dark yellow shirt gesturing against a bright yellow background):

“Someone is behaving erratically & in harm’s way.

Imagine…

…texting a number & and unarmed urgent responder trained in behavioral and mental health comes within 5 minutes.

An hour later that person is safe & getting the support they need.

isn’t that public safety?”

Poster 9 (an image of a leaf against a green background):

“Someone is selling drugs to youth who are over dosing.

Imagine…

…being connected to a substance use service that intervenes in harmful drug transactions.

Youth are supported in healthy outcomes & the seller takes accountability for harm.

isn’t that public safety?”

Poster 10 (an image of black silhouettes of assault weapons against a teal background):

“Incidents of gun violence are rising in the neighborhood.

Imagine…

…a trauma informed crisis intervention team works with community activists to disarm and deescalate conflicts.

People doing harm are connected to services that address the underlying problem.

isn’t that public safety?”

[end image description]

[handsmotif]

oh no I am feeling sad! *consumes a mcelroy product* *consumes a mcelroy product* *consumes a mcelroy product* *consumes a mc

[jonphaedrus]

Beginner's Guide Image Captioning

i get a lot of people lately asking me how to do this so i may as well write up a guide. if you’re new to captioning—that’s fine! i’m certainly not an expert. i’m speaking entirely from my own personal experience and working with my own vision loss. i am not an expert. please do not expect me to be.

why should i caption/describe images?

because a lot of people on the internet are blind or vision impaired. many of them use screenreaders. if you want to try out what this is like, you can turn voiceover on on your phone or computer—i recommend you try it. all images without captions are read as “image”. it gets old.

in addition, especially for comics or reaction images or photos with small text or details, even sighted people can miss these details. adding this information in a caption or description means people won’t miss it! especially since tumblr just added the ability to actually caption images, now’s a great time to get into the habit!

how do i do it?

on twitter you can turn this on via settings > accessibility > compose image descriptions. on tumblr it’s supposedly done via alt text by clicking on the meatballs on an image, although it’s not actually been working for me, because it’s tumblr. you can also do it as a reply to the original tweet, a qrt of the original tweet, a reblog comment, etc. the main idea is to do it.

what do i do?

let’s do some examples, going from what i have saved on my desktop, because i’m lazy:

[id: pottsfield c.m. sheet music]/end id

this is a good start—it says what the reader needs to know in the loosest terms. this is the song, here’s what this image is. but it’s leaving out a lot of information: what is pottsfield c.m., what kind of sheet music is this? so let’s try adding some more:

[id: pottsfield c.m. from “over the garden wall” in the key of a major, transcribed into four-shape notation]/end id

this tells the reader a good deal more: where the music comes from, what the song is, what key it is in (important, for if they want to sing it!) and, most importantly, it’s not just sheet music, this is four-shape shapenote notation, which is very different from traditional sheet music. but we could do even more!

[id: pottsfield c.m. from “over the garden wall” in the key of a major with the composers and transcribers listed in the top right corner. this version has been transcribed into four-shape notation, rather than just written to sound like it. each bar has a repeat and the two lines of lyrics are beneath the treble and the tenor lines. verse 1: o hie thee forth o’er mead: yon is the maypole set—a ribbon to wind thy soul, and to bind love to thy breast/verse 2: from flesh removed, our chalk footfall tempers this holy ground, where timeless spirits meet, ‘round the heart of Pottsfield town.]/end id

depending what you were using this for, all three of these could be appropriate captions. the first would be to note what it is, the second could be to tell the reader “this is the version someone actually made singable!” and the third is the details needed for someone who might be interested in singing it

what about for art?

let’s do something fairly well known with a lot of detail

[id: photograph of da vinci’s the last supper, not color corrected.]/end id

simple, short, sweet, accurate. gets the info across. but if you’re doing analysis, or you’re running an art blog? then you’d want:

[id: photograph of da vinci’s the last supper, not color corrected. the fresco is faded and large blocks of color have desaturated, but all thirteen figures remain visibly individual, as does the white tabletop. in the center jesus sits in a red and blue robe, hands outstretched on the table, looking down, in front of three open windows. around him are ranged the apostles in various states of conversation. most notably john is leaning away from jesus, in reverse colors (blue robe, red cloak).]/end id

if you were doing analysis on the painting itself, you could add as many details as you’d want: judas knocking over the salt cellar, the hand with the knife, the spilled wine, etc. 

if you’re doing your own art, think about the following checklist:

who is the character(s)/what is the setting?

what is the medium? is this line/sketch/screentone/full color/watercolor/digital/traditional/cell shaded?

what are the colors i’ve used here? are they in their original color palette or is this a palette swap?

what are they doing? where are they looking? are they holding something? are they talking?

what is the background?

what is the text, if there is any?

if it’s a comic, what is the dialogue? what happens in each box?

simply: what are the details that you as the artist wanted to communicate to your viewer? those should be in your id—or in an id for someone else’s art.

what about memes and shitposts?

blind/visually impaired people like memes and shitposts and reaction images just as much as anybody else. captioning these can be a little bit different, because of how accessible certain images are in conversational parlance. here’s a point to think about how you use these images aloud—for example, do you say “cat no banana dot png” aloud? or “woman doing math dot png”?

know your audience here, and always err on the side of too much info better than no info. some examples:

[id: man drinking from cup with mouth open.gif]/end id

[id: gif of a white man making unblinking eye contact with the camera and rictus grinning as he drins out of a water glass with his mouth open so that the water runs back down his chin]/end id

[id: bb GET OUT]/end id

[id: two panel comic of big boss from hiimdaisy’s mgs comics. first panel: bb on white background. second panel: zoomed in bb in shade on a black background saying GET OUT.]/end id

[id: two panel comic from gigidigi’s hiimdaisy metal gear solid comics showing big boss (older white man with slicked back white hair and a cartoonized beard, missing his right eye with an eyepatch over it). in the first panel he is grinning and in lineart only over a whit background, remaining eye shut. in the second panel he is in intense shadow, his left eye open, mouth in a rictus grin on a black background saying GET OUT.]/end id

notice each of these changes for audiences: for some audiences, the first would be enough of a caption—that would be for a group where this image is used a lot. the more information you have, the more it clarifies for the reader.

this is true of all reaction gifs and images and macros like this—“is this a pigeon?” “guess ill die” “i am a dumb bitch with terrible taste”. these are all going to be described differently to different audiences, and erring on the side of caution never hurts. 

what about selfies?

the same rules apply as about art: what do you want your viewer to know? for example, if you censor some part of your body with an emoji, that can be important. if you’re using a wheelchair and you want your viewer to know the brand of wheelchair, say that. if the important part of the selfie is “my face blurry and only visible from the eyebrows up in the foreground and bigfoot, nine feet tall, covered in orange fur and screaming as he crashes through the underbrush about 40ft behind me, blurry because i’m running” then caption the part that matters. 

what about text screenshots?

please fucking caption text screenshots. text pixellates badly—my vision in low-stress scenarios with my glasses on is pretty good, and even still i can’t read text in screenshots from stuff like discord or id badges without my screen zoomed in to 3-4x zoom. these are often the easiest to caption, because you can c+v the text! for example:

[id: screenshot from discord saying:

fatal vore: type it, coward. alexei: you’re gonna regret this. alexei: but ok. fatal vore: tehy dont call me mortal hubris for nothing]/end id

or, if the reader isn’t familiar with who these two people are:

[id: screenshot from discord saying:

@aethercurrent​: type it, coward. @jonphaedrus: you’re gonna regret this. @jonphaedrus: but ok. @aethercurrent​: they dont call me mortal hubris for nothing]/end id

for screenshots that have images in them, this is even more important!

[id: screenshot from discord that has been put under a sepia toned filter with the JJBA to be continued roundabout arrow meme superimposed on it, saying:

alexei/@jonphaedrus: i really like how you’re developed a title style to represent every character pov alexei/@jonphaedrus: its kinda alexei/@jonphaedrus: quirky

underneath the text box, there is a notice that fatal vore/@aethercurrent​ is typing]/end id

now: i don’t claim to be an expert. i’m one person, learning to navigate my vision loss, and i’m not perfect. i often don’t do captions, and i should. we all should. not captioning images, especially ones used as parts of internet conversation, locks people out. this includes tweets and threads based on screenshots of other websites and headlines. this is all our visual art and our gifs, our photos of fashion. i am not a monolith, i am just trying to give you all a place where to start. 

there are a lot of other resources online for this. here are just a few to start with. there are many, many more. social media is hugely visually inaccessible, and one or two sentence captions do not take much time—and it makes a big difference!

[caelkid]

time to say It... anti mexican racism is a specific problem in america that needs to be talked about NOW. there is a culture of fear and hatred very specifically focused on the fact that mexicans dare exist outside of mexico that even extends past white majority areas and into other communities of color. its going to lead to something that can never be undone if other people don't start actively and enthusiastically giving mexican people their support and solidarity. i'm begging you, go out of your way today to research what you can do to help struggling mexican people in your community (which i guarantee there are)

if you aren't mexican reblog this but don't add any dumb shit to it please

[raisinchallah]

also thinking about this like gay sephardic poet from like the 13th century who wrote that moses would not have written down the laws against being gay if he had seen how beautiful his lovers face was and im like god the layers the romance the religious emotions..

[jewfrogs]

the poet is rabbi yehuda al-harizi/judah ben solomon harizi! it’s from his book of taḥkemoni iirc, and the quote is “if Moses had seen the way my friend’s face blushes when he’s drunk, and his beautiful curls and wonderful hands, he would not have written in his Torah: do not lie with a man”

[03josten]

stop fucking using the word psychotic to describe bad behaviour and violence already god fucking damn it

[03josten]

oh my god i'm so tired psychotic does not mean violent it does not mean angry or erratic. it refers to a person suffering from psychosis, a loss of touch with reality that includes hallucinations and/or delusions. psychotic people are not inherently violent and y'all need to understand how much stigma you create when you again and again incorrectly use the word psychotic without even thinking about it

[03josten]

would appreciate if non-psychotic people could reblog this

[onlyblackgirl]

ADOPTION FUN FACT

If you’re adopted internationally into the United States, BY adoption LAWS you’re legally a citizen, but you still have to apply for documentation and if it’s not done by the age of 18 you have to pay over $500 and get a judge to reopen your adoption case. 

Even More Fun Fact: No one actually tells adoptive families, this so many find out after they’re 18 when their kid needs to get a passport, wants to apply for financial aid, get certain jobs, vote or some other shit that requires proof of citizenship and now it’s too late because they’re 18 or over. 

AND EVEN MORE FUN FACT! You can sometimes even be deported because you can be considered foreign-born, non-citizens! 

Oh and they won’t accept adoption papers or a birth certificate as proof. 

Adoption is FUN. 

[confessionsofbirthmothers]

Do it now! Seriously. Even if you think you are safe. Do it.

Many people are finding that even a birth certificate is not valid proof anymore. Texas birth certificates are notorious. So notorious that I have 3 friends who can’t use them to get passports! Don’t think everything is hunky dory. You must nail down your citizenship.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/filling-out-form-n-600-application-certificate-citizenship.html

Plus the cost for your citizenship certificate is almost doubling this fall.

[elf-kid2]

SIGNAL BOOST.

[thepioden]

Some Naturalization/Citizenship Certificate tips from me, the person who front-end processes these forms for half the country: the passport people are absolute garbage at sending your Naturalization Certificate back to you. Unfortunately, they also require it for you to get a passport. If you don’t get it back, whine at them about it and they will probably cover the cost of the replacement.  

Also! It takes up to 12 months to get a replacement certificate. If you urgently need your Natz Cert to visit your dying relative in another country, the word you want to use is ‘Expedite’. Not ‘ASAP’. Not ‘rush’. Expedite. Write a letter explaining why you need it expedited, if you do. Otherwise the USCIS data-entry grunts (me!) aren’t allowed to throw it into the expedite line and it gets relegated to the Backlog Crypts. 

Also! You need to get a new Naturalization Certificate if your name and/or gender legally changes, because a lot of places want your proof of citizenship for things like Social Security and student loans and Medicaid/EBT/welfare benefits and drivers’ licenses. 

ALSO ALSO both the N600 ($600) that you use to apply for your Naturalization Certificate in the first place and N565 ($345) that you use to apply for a replacement certificate are eligible for FEE WAIVERS. It’s called an I912. Learn it, love it, use it. 

Please for your sake make sure you are using the current version of the form. The most common reason I have to reject an N565 is because someone sent me something that expired in 2013. The current one is seven pages long. Please send the government all seven of them. 

[rose-scented-prince-deactivated]

Dont mind me, just running ass home and then to the government so I cant get deported.

[chucktaylorupset]

we make a lot of jokes at the expense of furries on this site but let me be clear, if there were a couple of furries on the sonic design team we wouldn’t be in this mess

[chucktaylorupset]

Bringing this back for the cats trailer

[ruffboi-mags]

just one furry. just ONE FURRY could’ve prevented this monstrosity…

[ajani]

Broke: Disney should make 2D movies again

Woke: Disney should be dissolved and their assets and resources redistributed, partly opening up more room for other artists or groups thereof to have a chance against a near monopolistic studio

[apersnicketylemon]

Jewish people: Never Again means now Jewish people: When we say Never Again we don’t mean just us Jewish people: This is the same exact way this started for us last time Jewish people: We’re being arrested for trying to do something and they aren’t letting people know what’s happening or how many have died Jewish people: These are concentration camps, start calling them that. Goy, repeatedly: Uhhh, calling them that diminishes the suffering of The Jews, so you shouldn’t make those comparisons!!

Goy can (and should) reblog but don’t comment.

[qjusttheletter]

eternally tired of non-wheelchair using disabled folks thinking/saying wc users are treated better or have more access to the world or aren’t interrogated or doubted or harrassed like can we stop competing for two seconds and punch an abled or smth instead ffs

[butchwifing]

Given the serious heat in Chicago I wanted to pass along some information I found on The Night Ministry’s FB page, including this map that helps you locate cooling centers within the city. You can also call 311 to find one near you. The Night Ministry’s overnight youth shelter The Crib will be open 24/7 through the morning of 7/21. 

The 6 Chicago Department of Family and Support Services Cooling Centers will be open 7/18-7/19 from 9am to 7pm, and one (10 S. Kedzie) will be open 7/20 from 9am to 5pm. These are:

Englewood Community Service Center 1140 W 79th St.

North Area Community Center 845 W Wilson Ave

South Chicago Community Service Center 8650 S. Commercial Ave

Trina Davila Community Service Center 4312 W North Ave

King Center 4314 S Cottage Grove

Garfield Center 10 S. Kedzie

They’re even recommending that people stay indoors during peak heat times, so now more than ever is a good time to buy someone a meal so they can sit in an air conditioned restaurant rather than on the street, or get them a cold drink to make sure they can stay hydrated. Please be careful, take care of yourself and others, and share information about how to keep safe. 

[butchwifing]

Also consider donating to organizations like The Night Ministry that support people experiencing homelessness in Chicago!

[nyctosaurid]

not 2 exaggerate but the good place’s thesis of “if the modern pressures of life were removed, we would inherently seek out opportunities to learn and become better and kinder people” is a more interesting and valuable thing to say about society than anything that’s ever been said about cell phones

[elegantmess-southernbelle]

Our Greyhound Bus Experience

Strap in, friends, this is a long and harrowing ride. Literally, in the case of this friend.

At 11:45 PM (PDT), 10 of July, 2019, my dear friend, whom we shall call Oliver, was supposed to be leaving Seattle on his 11th cross country trip with Greyhound Bus Lines. Our intent was for him to have a leisurely trip to my home in Richmond VA and eventually fly home from Seattle after DragonCon. At least, that was the plan.

First of all, due to health problems, Oliver is a larger person, weighing 350 lbs. He is uses a motorized wheelchair for most mobility that weighs in at exactly 232 lbs. He is Ainu (a Japanese native minority).

Before they could begin to load Oliver on the wheelchair lift, the problems began. The lift began malfunctioning almost immediately, extending and promptly retracting. At one point, it actually reached the ground, and then refused to rise again. Several people fought to get the lift working and, even then, it repeatedly malfunctioned. It would not get off the ground empty, as they tested it without weight. At one point, Oliver was hovering about 1 1/2 feet (50 cm) off the ground with no motion in either direction. After an hour, the employees gave up, and the driver drove himself to the depot nearby to fetch a replacement bus and test the lift himself. 2 1/2 hours after the bus was meant to leave, it was finally ready to go.

That was the easiest part of this trip.

Upon arrival in Spokane at 7:09 AM PDT, it was discovered that the bus had missed their connection to a Jefferson Bus to Billings, MT, and across North Dakota, to Minneapolis (Jefferson Bus Lines serves the Mountain West from Spokane to Minneapolis, though the tickets are issued by Greyhound). The Spokane station is a Greyhound Station. In Spokane, Oliver was reissued his ticket for the next route west, leaving at 5:15 PM PDT. The new route also went to Billings via the same path, but crossed Wyoming and South Dakota, and on to Minneapolis, rather than North Dakota as his original itinerary did. Having the resources available, he seriously considered transferring to the Amtrak Empire Builder and eating the cost of the Greyhound ticket. In retrospect, he believes he should have, but hindsight is 20/20.

During his 12 hour layover, he called Greyhound Customer Service to tell them what had happened. He was told that nothing could be done about the issue until 24 hours after he had arrived at his final destination. That, by the way, would have meant that the earliest he could have called would have been on Monday the 15th of July, after the immediacy of the events could have been lost, particularly to someone with a neurological disability, which Oliver has (namely Moyamoya disease).

Upon attempting to reboard after 12 unexpected hours in Spokane and 2 meals out of pocket that he otherwise wouldn’t have needed (Spokane has no restaurant in station as of that date), they checked what was to be the first of his Jefferson Lines busses, only to discover that, once again, the lift was broken. This was discovered, again, before an attempt was made to load Oliver. Jefferson Lines, however, was able to fix the problem almost immediately. Rather than try and fail to repair the lift, as Greyhound had in Seattle, they immediately went and got another one. During this time, Oliver discovered that his new ticket and his baggage route tag no longer matched (Greyhound has passengers take possession of their own bags at every stop, while Jefferson does not). The single, quite overwhelmed ticket agent in the station —from Jefferson, but doing the work of both companies— had issued everyone replacement tickets, but forgotten to also issue new route tags to put on the baggage itself. Thankfully, the young man who works there as the only luggage specialist was able to run in and grab a new baggage route tag for Oliver, thus making his bag match the itinerary on his ticket.

(Also relevant here and in future in the story is that Oliver’s bag was marked in Seattle with a bright pink a “special handling” tag. This is supposed to mean that baggage handlers at each Greyhound Station are supposed to handle his bag. Ultimately, the only Greyhound stations which respected this were Spokane and Chicago.)

He traveled uneventfully through the night from Spokane to Billings, Montana. Sadly, this meant that part of the reason Oliver had booked the trip as he did was moot. He’s fond of Western Montana, thinks it’s beautiful, and had been looking forward to seeing it. However, due to the schedule shift, the bus was crossing the area not by day, but by night. His arrival in Billings was uneventful. His transfer to the next bus was likewise, due to the professionalism of the Jefferson employees. Alas, it was in Billings where the baggage error caught up with everyone on the bus, save him, who was continuing east. Since their baggage tags no longer matched their itineraries, their bags were held in Billings for the next bus across North Dakota to Minnesota. One friend he had made on the trip, we’ll call her Countess, had lost her baggage, leaving her bereft of clothing suitable for the funeral she was attending in Chicago. Oliver, having caught the error, stayed with his bag across South Dakota and into Sioux Falls.

At this point, the night caught up to Oliver and he attempted to go to sleep. He uses a C-PAP. And, unfortunately, the electricity on the bus proved to be faulty. Ten times during the night, he awoke when his C-PAP shut off. However, he lays no blame on Jefferson for this as they were very apologetic about the complication and he did survive the night.

Minneapolis, unfortunately, is a Greyhound Station, despite it also being the Jefferson Lines corporate headquarters. By this point, three nights had elapsed and Oliver had only managed, at most, 4 hours of sleep per night, the whole time in a seated position. Whilst being loaded into a Greyhound bus from Minneapolis to Chicago, the driver and station personnel responsible for loading him onto the bus manhandled his chair by shoving, pulling, and yanking it into positions of their choice by the seat back, contrary to his explicit orders not to. This ultimately damaged the seat back. The actual trip from Minneapolis to Chicago was uneventful, as Oliver slept the whole way.

In Chicago, everything got better... and much, MUCH worse. The station’s chief baggage handler saw to the handling of Oliver’s bag personally and attempted to console Countess as to her lost baggage. Heartened by the good treatment he and Countess had experienced at the hands of the chief baggage handler, and with memories of a similar wheelchair lift problem in Chicago on a similar trip two years prior having been handled remarkably well by the personnel at that station, Oliver decided that it would be in his best interests to talk to the customer service representatives who are stationed permanently at Chicago to see if his troubles for this trip could be similarly resolved.

He could not have been more wrong.

The customer service agent who took his complaint was not only extremely dismissive of his problems, but having not heard that the lift issue in Seattle took place before he used the lift, took it upon herself to tell him to his face that “weight is not a disability.” That, “they shouldn’t have to accommodate someone whose only disability is being fat.” That, “the ADA has limits and you should know them.”

With Oliver now stunned into, in his own words “Beached Fish-style Silence” (mouth moving, no words coming out), she then walked away, talking quite well above conversational levels, about “entitled people who abuse the ADA”, carrying this monologue throughout the station amongst the other station and talking about how it contributes so heavily to the delays in Greyhound service.

(Editors’ Note: I’m glad I wasn’t there. As a female-bodied person with a disability causing insulin resistance, I feel very strongly about fat shaming and ableism. This person was 1000% out of line and it’s a common intimidation tactic to do what she did to pit other people against the disabled. Thankfully, it didn’t work to turn them against him, though it did silence him, an abuse survivor with PTSD. Just be aware. This is a not-uncommon corporate tactic and NOBODY should tolerate it.)

He left Chicago, en route to Baltimore, via Cleveland and Pittsburgh. A mostly uneventful day passed crossing Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Alas, in Indiana, it was discovered that, like most drivers, this driver did not appreciate the thought of letting a wheelchair using passenger off the bus at meal stops. Oliver, at the outer limits of his capacity, is able to walk roughly 330 feet (100 meters) in a day. This meant that he could not easily walk into and out of the Howe, IN travel plaza, though he forced himself to do so anyway, as the alternative would be going roughly a full day without food. At all previous food stops, the driver or another passenger had been willing to take an order and money from Oliver, preventing delays. Indeed, the driver across Montana was so upset at herself for having to do so, that she kindly bought his food in Missoula with her own money. (Not surprisingly, she was a Jefferson employee....) The driver in Indiana? Not so much.

Given that he had no choice, Oliver walked into the travel plaza, purchased food and went back to the bus, collapsing in agony. At this point, it must be noted that, in addition to Moyamoya Disease, the condition that puts Oliver in a wheelchair is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Type VI, a degenerative connective tissue disorder. (Those interested can find more information online.)

After sitting in chair in agony for another hour and a half, the ride eventually returned to normal. Everything was fine into Cleveland. However, because on most Greyhound Busses, the restroom is in the back and the wheelchair seating is in the front, Oliver found himself needing to use the washroom in Cleveland, rather than doing so en route. This meant he had only enough time to either use the washroom or get food, not both. Given the choice, he decided to use the washroom. He was required to do so without his chair again. Upon reboarding, they were informed that, due to accumulated delays en route, they would not be having a rest stop at Pittsburgh, but would instead be continuing through the night into Baltimore. Thankfully, they had switched drivers in Cleveland, and when the new driver was told of Oliver’s needs, re-added a very short break in Pittsburgh to the trip to accommodate. This was necessary, as had he not had stopped in Pittsburgh, he would have been unable to use a washroom or acquire liquid to take his medicine.

From Pittsburgh, they then made Baltimore. However, somewhere in Ohio, (likely at Cleveland), Oliver’s luggage got lost. The loss was discovered in Baltimore when the suitcase did not appear at the side of the bus. He was told at Baltimore that it almost certainly had gone on to Richmond without him. That could not have been, as Oliver witnessed it being loaded in Chicago. The only possibility is that it had been unloaded at a station stop between Baltimore and Chicago, the most likely being Cleveland.

By this point, Oliver was too physically exhausted and emotionally worn out to do more than file a half-hearted complaint. This was also when Oliver discovered that his bus, which was to go from Baltimore to Richmond, having originated in New York, was running at least 4 hours late. No reason was ever given, though Oliver suspects it had to do with the blackout of Manhattan that day.

Two buses left Baltimore with a destination of Richmond, (including one that was an express between Baltimore, DC and Richmond), before his scheduled bus arrived. However, Greyhound would not change the ticket, due to the inconvenience to them of putting a wheelchair on one of those busses. His bus finally did arrive in Baltimore, 4 1/2 hours late. He boarded, minus trouble and luggage and proceeded to groggily travel through DC during rush hour, finally arriving in Richmond at 3:15 PM EDT on Sunday the 14th. This is a full 19 hours later than he should have, on a day when Richmond’s bus system is on a limited schedule and the only local wheelchair transports are impossible unless pre-booked.

At this point, I fetched him from the station, using what means I had, and guided him to my house, via these limited busses. This forced us to hike/roll a mile and a half from the last bus stop served to home, in 90 degree F (33 C) heat and both of us exhausted, angry and miserable.

He is now here, finally, and has had a full night’s sleep. Where his story goes from here is anyone’s guess, but I think it safe to say it won’t be getting there via Greyhound, as they have lost a lifelong customer.

[morgynleri]

Hey, y’all, could you signal boost this? Because the shit they put my friend through? Is utterly unacceptable. And absolutely infuriating.