Last month, my husband and I purchased a cheap bottle of wine at a local grocery store. When I handed the clerk my ID, he flashed the card for everyone to see and laughed.
"Just don't try and drive," he said, lifting the wine bottle high, as if to toast.
I understood the implication and glared so hard he hurried through the rest of our items.
Stamped across the front of my card: Non-Driver ID.
The clerk seemed to think I had committed some horrible offense to lose my license. Otherwise, why the humor?
I wanted to dump the wine on his register. I wanted to file a complaint with store management. If he had to live one minute in my shoes, he would not think it appropriate to speculate - loudly, publicly - on the reasons I cannot drive.
If my disability were visible, he would know right away to keep his mouth shut. But because he cannot see the lesions in my brain where the seizures start, he speculates. He teases. He outs me to strangers in the grocery line.
People gasp when I tell them I never learned to drive. They want to know: How on earth do I buy groceries? How do I get to work? How do I shop?
Sometimes, I feel snarky and tell them it keeps my weight below the plump, Oregon average. Sometimes, I tell them: Think bus; think MAX trains; think pedestrian.
Is it really so hard to imagine? Is my reality so exotic? (And besides, I rather like my car-free life.)
Needless to say, I was horrified to learn about the story of Helen Schneider:
However, Tuesday morning the Oregon State Employment Department says she must pay nearly $6,000 in unemployment benefits.
The agency says she owes the money because she turned down a job.
Schneider says she had to reject the job offer because she has never had a drivers license and the bus doesn't run during the hour the job starts. (KATU, click link above)
Like Helen, I have had to turn down (or more accurately, flat-out not apply for) jobs due to bus schedules or other transportation issues. The State of Oregon has shown its true face.
Helen agrees:
Helen says its discrimination against workers who rely on public transportation to get to work.
"It makes me feel that they don't want to hear what us working class people need or wants. It makes me feel like a second class citizen and I'm not," she says. "I pay my taxes. I even took taxes out of the employment money." (KATU, click link above)
I do not know why Helen never learned to drive, but I can tell you this much: I now know that I should never bother with unemployment benefits. My kind is not wanted there.
I encourage you all to deluge the Oregon State Employment Department with angry letters, pronto. Contact them here.
UPDATE: For those who say Ms. Schneider should simply learn to drive, remember this: Many people cannot afford a car, regardless of ability to drive.
This is an ADA issue, a civil rights issue, and a poverty issue. And besides that, when did it become law in this country that everyone has to drive? (And again, we do not know why Ms. Schneider never learned. For all we know, she may have some medical condition. So please do not make assumptions.)
