Printer Friendly

Email This Page

Leave a Comment

Read Comments (0)

Sign Up!

In all my years confined to a wheelchair, some of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had have occurred at gas stations. A generic, mundane chore for the non-disabled invokes a weird, sobering form of irony. The federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has provisions that require self-serve gas stations to provide a full-service alternative for disabled drivers. Like most ADA rules, it’s self-enforced, and in fact the average attendant sitting in the cash booth, watching a little TV and working for minimum wage at many of these stations have never heard of the ADA!

Therefore, this rule requires the disabled person to initiate the entire process:

1. Pull car to next available pump.

2. Beep your horn – The gas station attendant may or may not respond, especially if he’s the only one in the booth (or behind the counter at the ever-popular combination gas station-convenience store). He’ll study you strangely, wondering ‘why is that person sitting in their car beeping at me? Why can’t they just get out and come tell me what they’re honking about?’

3. Display your Handicapped parking Permit for the attendant – for me it’s the kind that hangs from your rear view mirror (advantageous because of its portability). The other common permit is the little handicapped symbol engraved right on the license plate itself (disadvantageous because it’s associated with only one vehicle, and it tells potential assailants specifically who might be an easy target since it all but announces your physical impairment).

4. Pause, while they stare blankly

5. If they do approach you, explain that you are in a wheelchair and that the ADA law goes like this, etc. If they still do not approach you (who can blame them, since they probably weren’t hired to pump gas in the first place), skip steps 6 through 10. Get out and pump your own gas, or drive off in disgust.

6. Pause while they again stare at you, perhaps not as blankly, but since you might be driving a fairly normal looking car, and you are fairly normal looking behind the wheel, they’re suspicious, thinking nothing in fact is wrong with you.

7. If they finally buy it, then shut off the ignition and pop open gas cap for them.

8. Remember to shut off your engine when refueling and please refrain from smoking!

9. Pay the attendant and thank him for his time. Maybe add in a generous tip. Optional: an impromptu speech about how the “ADA only works if everyday people like you go above and beyond to assist those in need”. Try not to be too sappy, or on the other hand too unappreciative. Remember, you’re representing….

10. Congratulations! You’ve exercised your rights as a citizen who is covered under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. Extra points awarded if you were able to educate the attendant so that the next disabled driver won’t have to repeat such an arduous sequence of events.

Occasionally an owner or attendant who actually is well-versed in the law will walk over and offer to pump gas, and make you promise next time to just beep your horn, etc. etc. but normally, it’s easier to suck it up, get out and pump my own gas.

There was only one time that I can think of where I broke my own credo and decided to invoke the ADA gas pump rule. In the 90’s while I was still a bachelor, it was late, and I was just leaving my I.T. job after a grueling 18 hour day. It had started snowing, I was exhausted, and if there ever was a time when I truly preferred to let an able-bodied gas-pumper do his thing, now was it. So I pulled up and began with step one. The man inside was in his mid to late forties or early fifties, with broad shoulders and a gruff, hands-on, mechanic’s demeanor – a real man’s man. I got no response from him after my quick, courteous beep-beep. I beeped once more, cautiously. He responded with an almost a defiant expression. No, it couldn’t be, I thought. Is he refusing to come out here? I beeped again and held my permit even higher aloft – perhaps he hadn’t seen it the first time. Now he only grinned. Then he shook his head. He’s shaking his head – why? I let my permit linger for another few seconds, but he would not budge from his seat inside the cash register. Oh well, should have known - bad idea. I’ll just get myself out.

A few minutes later, after I had assembled my chair, transferred out of the car and had begun pumping (the attendant all the while inside, watching), I noticed he had moved from his perch, and was now standing in the doorway, still watching. It’s okay, I surmised to myself. It’s not worth the time thinking about it. I finished pumping, but decided to put in no more than five dollar’s worth, on principle – I would fill up somewhere else in a couple of days. And here’s where the real irony comes in: There was no ramp to get inside and pay, for this was an older generation of service stations, the kind that is surrounded by a 10 inch curb too high to manage in a chair, especially in a snow storm. I sat there, cursing silently, with snow flakes beginning to accumulate on my head, and the owner/attendant loomed ahead of me in the doorway, still grinning.

“Sorry!” he said, almost a chuckle. “I don’t pump for anybody unless they have a license plate that says you’re handicapped.”

I was shocked. Here I sat in my wheelchair, in a snow storm, and the gas station owner (must have been the owner to have adopted this Cowboy policy) still needed more proof of my actual disability.

“Look at me” I said, holding my arms open at my sides. “Is there any question in your mind as to whether I’m entitled or not?”

“Oh, so report me, just like the last one!” he snorted.

“Don’t worry.” I said, as I laid a five dollar bill on the ground at the edge of the non-traversable curb. “You’re not worth it.”

The very next time I filled up (at another Mobil station in nearby Yalesville, CT) the owner of this one came out while I was filling and scolded me for not beeping my horn so I could let him pump the gas for me. Gas stations, I learned, truly represent a spectrum between human kindness and human despair, and on any given day you’ll never know which end you’ll get.

(This is an excerpt from "They Call Me Wheels", a memoir by Geoffrey E. Matesky, NOW AVAILABLE from iUniverse, Amazon.com, & Barnes & Noble (bn.com). If you are a bookseller and wish to obtain copies, please contact the sales department of my publisher, iUniverse.com for more details.)