Thanks / No Thanks

First, RantWoman wishes sincerely to thank all bus drivers everywhere who, when Ambassador Thwack is chaperoning RantWoman in the vicinity of bus stops, stop and announce their route number. RantWoman feels very lucky sometimes to be able to read the bus reader boards or to figure out some other way whether she does or does not want a given bus, but RantWoman THANKS the drivers regardless.

Ditto for people who see RantWoman on a street corner and ASK whether RantWoman needs any assistance. RantWoman finds it a lot more difficult to be thankful for the people whose ignorant comments cause RantWoman to fear for their intelligence, but most of the time the fact that RantWoman is a work in progress about this point is not discernible to others.

RantWoman has heard many stories from her colleagues at "Blind School," WA State's adult rehabilitation program, about the unschooled masses offering ALL SORTS of extremely unhelpful and even inappropriate or dangerous "help" to people learning to use white canes. RantWoman herself has a couple people in her life whom she otherwise is generally fond of who seem particularly impervious to requests to modify the "help" they are delivering.

But this post means to recognize the all-time grand prize winner in the DUMB traffic intervention on RantWoman's behalf category: a couple years ago, RantWoman went out one night to visit a temporary public memorial for a tragedy in her neighborhood. Traffic was doing various things as cars approached and parked. RantWoman was trying to cross a street, but a woman dressed in black stopped her car in the middle of road, tottered up to RantWoman on high heels, and nearly dragged RantWoman across the street.

RantWoman did NOT need her help. To this day, RantWoman is completely unsure what force of restraing or stark raving terror kept her from just reading her would-be assistant the riot act. Perhaps it was a simple desire not to be in communication a second longer than necessary with this "help."