At some point in life — preferably when they are young — everyone should have to wait tables. It instills permanent sympathy for service-economy workers and an abhorrence of people who abuse them.
Having spent the past five weeks in a leg cast and on crutches, I’m wondering if everyone should have that experience, too.
Like waiting tables, temporary disability teaches the remarkable variance in human quality in this world. Some people have veins filled with Grade A milk of human kindness, such as the lady on the bus who sits opposite me every morning so she can hold the other end of my crutch and elevate my leg.
Then there are the people so self-absorbed they probably create their own gravitational pull. Many of them ride Metro. If you’re a regular rider, you already know that chivalry not only is dead, it has been stomped flat, buried deep, and the Earth around it salted. Except for that noble group of men who always stand, leaving the seats available for others, most men don’t give up their seats for ladies — even a lady on crutches. With rare exceptions, it is women who give up their seats for other women.
Your next best bet is black men, followed by men in uniform — though soldiers sometimes scramble to sit down. I would love to understand the logic of that. You’ll sacrifice your life, but not your seat on the subway?
If a white man gives up his seat, he’s probably a tourist. From Texas. Generally, white men either pretend to be asleep or bury their faces in a book, indicating that at least they are ashamed to remain seated while a pregnant woman teeters on swollen ankles.
But ladies, we share the blame. When a man offers you his seat and you turn him down, he’s not likely to offer again. Even if you don’t actually need to sit, please don’t ruin it for the rest of us.
While my crutches might be invisible to white men on the Metro, they have enhanced my friendship with vagrants. The panhandler who works the block next to my office used to hit me up for money — until he saw me as a kindred spirit. Now he asks how my leg is doing, when the cast is coming off, and tells me to go home and get off my feet. Although I declined his offer to call “Dr. Feelgood” for medication, I appreciated the gesture … I think.
Perhaps because his own life is a hard-luck story, he is one of the few people who haven’t asked how I wound up in this condition. Most people do, which led to another happy discovery: There is a lot of good humor out there.
One evening on the Metro, the people in the seats surrounding mine began an informal contest to come up with an explanation for my injury more colorful than the truth. The winner: a hilarious yarn about being tripped by Wayne Newton while competing on “Dancing With the Stars.”
Being entertained by strangers helps compensate for maddening frustrations — in particular, spring-loaded doors. Doesn’t anybody realize that those idiotic devices mandated by fire code regulations essentially negate the requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act? How is a person in a wheelchair supposed to push those heavy doors open?
Has no one explained to Bureaucracy Central that a door designed to close behind you traps and trips a person on crutches? I’ll take my chances with fire, thank you very much.
In fact, I’ll take my chances with people. The past five weeks have served as a reminder that there are a lot of sweet souls in this world. It is my good fortune to know many of them well, and to have encountered many more in passing.
It may not be comfortable to rely on the kindness of strangers, but it’s sure nice to know it’s out there.
Examiner columnist Melanie Scarborough has never been tripped by Wayne Newton while dancing or otherwise.
