FOR THE AUNT OF THE GUY AT THE PARKING LOT

22.05.04

Today I will talk to you about how the good intentions of people can harm or diminish you.

Anna was right to have referred to the notions and impressions of people –the way those are acquired in the environment where people live and get their education-. The image we have for a person is not created right at the moment we meet that person, nor is it an exclusive creation of vision. On the contrary, it is a product of our experiences and backgrounds, as well as of the impressions that we got when we were taught one or two things from our family or our teachers.
If, for instance, we have learned that a person with a disability has 1.000 reasons to be unhappy, because, in our opinion, this person can accomplish fewer things, then we will feel merciful and will probably try to soften the pain, offering something in replacement of what this person has lost, since he or she was born with a disability. Disability. What a discordant word. The ‘b’ and the ‘l’ remind me of the sound of the word ‘blemish’. A harmful blemish that I carry on my back, because I contracted it from someone. Well, I took a hammer and destroyed it.
I became disgusting in order to transmit you my own disgust not when someone calls me disabled (since I am disabled) but when that someone makes me incapable and unhappy by calling me disabled. In that case, even an act of good behaviour makes me want to throw up.

Yesterday I went with a friend for a drink. We parked the car and got ready to pay the guy at the parking lot. He said: ‘No man, it’ s on me, I ‘ve got an aunt too.’. (Between you and me now: if this guy was about 50 years old, his aunt would be somewhere between 70 and 75.) I told him no. I want to pay! (You might say I am stupid but this is what I said.) I thought inside: Who gives a damn about your aunt, man!

On the road home, I remembered all those who used to give me change when they saw me sitting on my wheelchair outside the stores, while gaping idly at their windows. They told me: ‘Here, get them!’, without hearing a single word from me. At first I was shocked. I cried right on the spot. I was wondering if I looked like a beggar and forced them, without wanting to, to give me money, even though they always saw me well dressed and with the mobile phone in my hands.

I slowly got over the initial shock and the whole scene started making me think that I should actually burst out laughing! I was even thinking that all this money would help me buy a ticket for London or Rome and never come back and I would thus never see again any sort of scumbag whatsoever. One day my mother said to a lady: ‘What? Only 100 drachmas? What do you think my kid will do with just half a euro? Couldn’t you have at least given us 500 drachmas?’. Then the lady, with tears in her eyes, took a 10.000 drachmas note from her wallet (the only note she had) and gave it to us. I felt really sorry for her, because I understood how pure her feelings were. We gave the note back and advised her never to give money again to any person not asking for it. Nobody gave me any money ever since. Things have changed now. A euro has the value of 340,75 drachmas. Too much money to be wasted. Don’t you think?