It has been pointed out by various people in my life that I have some kind of color blindness. Some colors just look too similar for me to be able to tell apart. It’s not really been an issue in my life thus far, so I haven’t sought out any sort of treatment. This story is about the first time it really occurred to me that I might not see colors the same way other people do.

I was a senior in my high school chemistry class. Within the last five years or so of this story, our school had installed SMART boards in every classroom. I don’t know if these are a thing everywhere else in the world, but think of them like giant touch-screen whiteboards that you can draw on digitally and use as a computer display. These come with four pens that each draw in a different color — black, red, blue, and green — as well as an eraser.

Our teacher was going through slides on the board and making notes on each slide to point out certain things to us, and we were instructed to take notes along with what she was saying and writing. She was using, I believe, the blue colored pen to write. I snickered to myself as she was writing because the pen had clearly malfunctioned, and while she was writing, nothing was actually being written on the board. This went on for a minute or two, and I thought it was funny that she didn’t seem to notice after writing so much.

I looked around the room to see if anyone else had noticed since she didn’t seem to, but everyone was dutifully taking notes — notes that I couldn’t see because the blue color was blending into whatever color the slide was. (I think it was a shade of purple, maybe.) It dawned on me that I just couldn’t see that shade of blue on that particular colored slide. I wanted to take notes despite being a little embarrassed, so I raised my hand to make it known to my teacher.

Me: “[Teacher], could you please swap to a different colored pen? I really cannot read that color on that background. Like, I can’t see what you’re writing at all.”

I would imagine that any teacher who gives a fart about their job might inquire into this a bit, or at the very least politely acknowledge my request and carry on with the lecture. I was met with silence and a dirty look. To her credit, she did swap pens before carrying on.

It’s not the most interesting story, but ten years later, it still kind of flabbergasts me that a young person may be showing signs of a disability and some teachers just could not care less. I was more of an annoyance to her than anything else.

A friend of mine lost her left leg to cancer when she was little. It was one of the most heartbreaking, devastating things for a child to go through. I can’t even put into words how strong and resilient she is, living her life with the terrifying thought that the cancer could come back one day. (She’s currently seventeen years in remission, though!)

We went to a concert in our late twenties and headed to the disability seating, which happened to be right up close to the stage. Since she’s lived with this all her life, my friend only gets a really pronounced limp when she has overextended herself. Today was a really good day, so she was walking just fine. 

A security guy stepped in front of us and smirked.

Security: “Okay, girls, which one of you is supposed to be handicapped?”

Friend: “I am.”

Security: *Smirk widening* “Okay, prove it!”

Me: “Seriously? You know you don’t have the legal right to ask that, right?”

Security: “And yet, here we are.”

My friend bent over slightly and knocked on her prosthetic leg. The hollow sound was very audible since the worst of the crowds hadn’t arrived yet.

The security guard turned very red and backed away from us. Shortly after I had a little talk with some other staff at the venue, he was replaced by someone else. We enjoyed ourselves immensely after that.

I’m going to a museum with my two cousins, grandmother, and daughter. My cousins are meeting us there. I manage to get into one of the few disabled spaces in front of the museum. I get out and help my daughter out. I have the car door open with the wheelchair ready to help my grandmother when a woman walks in front of the car and starts to rant.

Woman: “What a terrible person, taking up a disabled space rather than parking five minutes away. Disabled spaces aren’t the same as parent-child spaces, you know! I’m going to report you! It’s unfair that I had to park five minutes away and walk here, but you think you can break the rules!”

I just let her rant on. I then focused on my grandmother and started to help her out. I heard the woman go quiet as she watched my grandmother struggle to transfer from the car to the wheelchair even though it was a couple of steps. I shut the car and locked it up before walking past her. I’ve got to admit, I did look very smug.

For the record, I had a blue badge in the car to show that I am entitled to park there when my grandmother is in the car.

Related:
And What Happens When You Assume? Part 2
And What Happens When You Assume?
Remember What Happens When You Assume
What’s That Saying About What Happens When You Assume?
What Happens When You Assume

I was in a physical education class with a kid who walked with canes. Even though he knew the theory that we were taught perfectly, the teacher scored him low at the end of the year. We asked her what her reasoning was.

Teacher: “If I score him like you guys, you’ll complain that he got as good scores as you did, even though he can barely walk.”

We tore her a new one.

I work as a lawyer for disabled people, protecting their welfare and SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) income.

Before a case, the prosecution approached me asking me to convince my client to drop their defense. The prosecution had plenty of videos of the defendant (or someone who looked exactly like the defendant) working in his yard and on his house.

I’m sure they thought their case looked rock solid… until we brought the defendant to court with his identical twin brother.

The prosecution tried to argue that it wasn’t the brother in the photos. As part of their argument, they showed a picture of the “defendant” working in his yard while a man who looked exactly like the defendant sat in a wheelchair in the defendant’s yard.

We won the case. My client continued to get the money he needed to live. And the South Dakota Department Of Human Services suffered no punishment for their error.