I caught this story on the local news and it struck a chord with me because of a broader topic which is a personal pet peeve for me. I don’t really intend this post to be a specific comment/discussion of the story cited, since there is some debate as to whether or not the zoo comment was made.
If it was actually made it was entirely improper and the woman was properly upset. But at the same time her comment that all of the machines should all fit everyone seemed to be a bit much to me. When you design a machine it can only work up to a certain capacity and sometimes people exceed those limits.
It seems that there are larger machines out there (since the woman found one) but I assume they are more expensive and so I don’t think it unreasonable that only some places have those and if you are over a certain weight or size you have to go to them.
But to expect every facility to spend the extra money is a bit extreme to me (indeed I suppose there might be very large people who would need some larger machine that might be normally used for animals and if that was the case you have to go where the services are available). Indeed in this case the machine was set to fit people up to nearly 500 lbs so probably 9 % or more of patients would have no problems.
So it seems quite reasonable to me that most facilities would have the basic machine (which would work for 95% of people) and for a limited number to have one that fits larger patients.
Just in case you want to brand me as not understanding the issue of weight and/or other disabilities, I am well versed in the topic. A close family member was quite overweight and it was simply something we dealt with. If we went out to eat we sometimes had to wait extra time for a table because he could not fit in a booth. I am sure when he went to the doctor he sometimes had to go through extra stuff due to his weight.
Similarly, I have close friends who are confined to wheelchairs and when we go out to places sometimes we have to wait for a place to sit or are unable to access certain areas. When we go to an amusement park sometimes you can’t get on a certain ride or into an older area of the park. We just deal with that.
In other words in both cases we do/did expect places to make reasonable accommodations for the problems we faced. If they provided no way for us to get into the business or if they were rude about things then we quite properly complained. But if you just were not able to access area B but could access Area A, we tried to be reasonable.
To be sure in the past this was more of a problem when places did little or nothing to provide access and it was quite proper for activists to protest and seek redress. But today it seems like everybody expects everyone else to bend to whatever their needs are no matter how much it costs.
I myself have vision problems and bad coordination. As a result I was the nerdy kid who stunk at sports and now I am the dorky adult who stinks at sports.
Should local intramural leagues be forced to let me play even though I am not very good ? Should I get to stand closer to the basket or be off limits to being tackled so I can do better? If I go to a ring toss game should I get to stand closer than everyone else?
The answer is of course NO. I am not as good at these things and it’s just something I have to accept and something I’ve dealt with my whole life. Obviously this is a minor issue compared to those with real disabilities and they do, of course, deserve some accommodations. But people also have to accept that not everyone gets to do everything.