(I suffer from psoriasis and so my knees often appear scraped up and scabbed over. Most people who don’t know my skin condition assume I’ve fallen and hurt myself, which doesn’t bother me. This assumption, though, I just can’t even fathom. I am sitting at a park watching my siblings play when someone comes up and asks me this gem:)
Stranger: “Excuse me. But do you have leprosy?”
On holiday, beside the pool, my partner slipped on the marble poolside. While I am a qualified first aider, I am disabled, and was therefore unable to move to get supplies as I was not in my wheelchair. Luckily, I was close to where my partner fell.
Immediately after he fell, three or four people came to us. One brought towels to stop the bleeding as there was an awful lot of blood from his head wound, another found the first aid kit, and a third found the resort first aider. It was obvious my partner needed an ambulance, and that was arranged. While we waited, I needed to collect passports and visas for insurance purposes, and this man who we had never met before, another holiday maker, held my partner’s head together and staunched the bleeding while someone else helped me to my wheelchair so I could collect the necessities.
When I arrived back at the scene, I found just a pool of blood; my partner had been transferred to the ambulance, strangers had gathered our things into bags and put them in the ambulance for us, and they stayed to help get me and my wheelchair into the ambulance and even offered to come to the hospital with us to help at the other end.
The fact that these strangers were willing to get covered in blood and take time out of their holiday to help us made the experience much less terrifying, and meant I was actually able to get my partner the treatment he needed and come to the hospital with him.
His head injury was less severe than it appeared, but he still needed surgery. He came back to the hotel with me and was recovering well when the strangers who helped us came to check in and see how he was doing.
The moment in the ambulance when that stranger clasped my hand and told me it would be fine made me believe in humanity again.
(An online acquaintance is transitioning from male to female. We chat, after not communicating for a while.)
Me: “So, what’s new on your front?”
Friend: “Breasts.”
Me: “I walked right into that, didn’t I?”
(I work in a restaurant. I’m a coeliac, so have to avoid gluten, which means anything like bread, pasta, etc. Because of that, I often get sent to tables when customers have allergies so I can help them navigate the menu.)
Customer: “I’m allergic to wheat!”
Me: “Okay, here are our options that are wheat- and gluten-free.”
Customer: “Okay, I’ll have the steak, but make sure it’s gluten-free; I’m allergic!”
Me: *goes into a lengthy speech about how we’re careful in the kitchen, use separate cutting boards, etc.* “Anything for a starter, ma’am?”
Customer: “I’ll have garlic bread.”
Me: “…”
(A customer is looking lost near our refrigerated section, so I approach her for help.)
Customer: “Yes, I was looking for the vegetarian tamales you advertised.”
Me: “Oh, you’re in the right place; they’re right here! They’re really quite tasty.”
(I hand her a package, and she proceeds to study it.)
Customer: “They do look good, but I wish they didn’t have corn in them. It’s so bad for you, you know! You can’t digest it, and it makes you fat. It’s really just so bad for you, so I’m trying to not eat it. But I guess I can pick the kernels out when I eat these.”
(The outer portion of tamales is, of course, corn masa. She added the tamales to her basket, which contained only one other item: corn tortillas.)
