Entitlement Can Be Disabling

(I am attending the county fair, and I go to use the women’s bathroom. There is only one handicapped stall, and a polite woman using a wheelchair is waiting to use it. She even moves her chair to make sure I can get into an empty stall. Once I am done, she is still waiting, and I notice she is squirming a lot in her chair. I work with disabled individuals, and I know that those with mobility issues, especially those who are paralyzed, can have little to no control over their bladders.)

Me: “Are you all right?”

Woman In Chair: “Yes, it’s just… I’ve been waiting about ten minutes, and it’s getting harder and harder.”

Me: *I knock on the stall door* “Excuse me, are you all right?”

Woman In Stall: “See? I told you to hurry up; people are waiting! We are not leaving this stall until you go potty!”

Child: *also in stall* “I don’t have to go! I told you already!”

Woman In Stall: “I don’t care! We’re not leaving!”

Me: “Ma’am? I’m sorry, but there are people waiting to use this stall.”

Woman In Stall: “We’re in here!”

Woman In Chair: “I can wait, I think. I’m trying.” *squirms more* “Really, I don’t like to cause a scene.”

Me: *to the woman in the stall* “Ma’am, that is the only stall large enough for anyone with a wheelchair to use; you need to move so others can use it.”

Woman In Stall: “I have my daughter with me!”

Child: “I don’t have to go!”

(This goes around for about three minutes. The mother keeps yelling at her daughter to go potty, the daughter says she doesn’t have to, and I try my hardest to figure out how to get a woman who cannot walk at all into a stall that isn’t large enough for her wheelchair. It’s not happening, at all. Even the larger stalls all have tiny doors. The woman in her wheelchair is actually tearing up.)

Woman In Chair: “This is my anniversary trip. I don’t have any spare clothes, or another seat cushion, and I just can’t… I can’t wait.”

Me: *bangs on the stall door*

Woman In Stall: “FINE!”

(She comes out of the stall, revealing that her daughter has to be close to seven years old. They leave, and I move out of the way so the woman in the chair can get in. As I move, an eleven-year-old girl walks over and actually steps over the foot pedals of the woman in the wheelchair!)

Me: “Hey! Wait your turn, please.”

Woman In Chair: “Excuse me. I was next; I’ve been waiting.”

Girl: *stares straight at the woman in the wheelchair as she shoves the door shut and locks it, literally having to push the woman back to do so*

Woman In Chair: *crying* “Please! Please! I can’t hold it any longer. Every other stall is free! Please!”

(The girl ignores us, and a woman comes in and walks straight past us and to the handicapped stall. She begins talking to her daughter through the stall.)

Me: “Ma’am, your daughter pushed this woman aside, who has been waiting!”

Mother: “Oops, sorry about that.” *continues talking to her daughter, notices that the woman in the wheelchair is crying* “[Child], this is actually a very good lesson for you. Look how upset this woman is getting over a bathroom stall. That is ridiculous! You did nothing wrong; it’s stupid to get upset over a stall.”

Me: “Wow! I’d be more upset over the fact you and your daughter are b****es.”

(The mother throws a literal tantrum. Her daughter comes out, and the mother then refuses to move, standing in front of the handicapped stall and trying to get other women in the bathroom to side with her, repeatedly saying, “I don’t have to move if I don’t want to; am I right?” Finally, a woman who has been doing her makeup at the sink turns around and stares the mother down.)

Makeup Woman: “If I were you, I would be beyond embarrassed. First for your daughter’s obvious lack of manners, and then for your own. If you were one of my employees, or if my daughters acted even close to how yours has, I’d be appalled. You are at a community event, and you are a parent. Act like an adult.” *looks at the girl* “As for you, I hope that you do not grow up to act like you are acting now, or how your mother is, because I can assure you it is a mistake.”

(The mother grabbed her daughter’s unwashed hand and stormed out, a bunch of us laughing at her as she did so.)