Riding The Bus With My Dog

Ever wonder why bus drivers need to announce *every* stop? Here's a great example. To conserve energy so I could attend a yoga class, I decided to take a bus one way to the vet's office. As usual, while swiping my bus card I told the driver my destination. After sitting down, I pulled out my phone to monitor the street numbers as they passed. My first mistake was in putting the phone away just before my destination. The driver did announce all the stops, which had me convinced she would also indicate the one I needed, even if she forgot I wanted it. That was my second mistake. She didn't announce my stop nor did she stop. When she announced the stop after mine, I called to her, "I wanted 39th?" I think her response was simply saying she'd gone past. When I got off, I inquired, "How many streets back is the stop I wanted?" "You should cross the street and take the other bus back," she replied. "Don't have time. Do you know how many?" "Two or three maybe. Sorry," was her answer, with the apology covering either her lack of knowing or her mistake or both. Armed with this wealth of information, Camille and I began walking. About the time I reached the second intersection, it dawned upon me that I would need to cross either on or off ramps for a highway. Having never done that in my entire life, I was a bit.... concerned. With a crosswalk and light, it was probably one of the safer ways to cross an off ramp, but without an audible signal, it was still daunting. I spent a long time listening to the traffic pattern trying to figure out how you timed things. I have to say that my little black dog was awesome. I might have been flipping out, but she was a total pro. And then we had to do it again on the other side of the overpass. Bus drivers are suppose to announce *all* stops whether they pull up to take on or disgorge passengers precisely so that blind people can get off where they wish. This driver's mistake put me in a pretty unhappy situation only mitigated by the fact that my dog is good at her job.

Follow Up

I wanted to finish the story of my class Power, Privilege and Visions of Justice.
After the first meeting, a cooling off period was in order, so I waited until Friday to take any steps. Through the point person at my LGBT center, I got an electronic copy of the syllabus and Later the instructor emailed me electronic copies of the readings.
Still quite upset, I tried a couple more days of calming down, but it didn't work. Finally, I emailed the instructor thanking him for the readings and expressing my frustration with how the class was conducted. I bluntly asked how I could learn about privilege from someone who created an exclusionary classroom environment. We emailed back and forth, but he continued to feel the only issue was the readings and their accessibility whilst I thought there were broader issues at play. He wanted to talk about how he was used to Disability Services handling everything. I wanted to discuss how his actions reflected able bodied privilege. Talking at cross-purposes never works and this case was no exception.
My other email exchange had a far more productive outcome. I again contacted the point person at my LGBT center and her almost immediate response was a request to talk about it. In that phone conversation, I found someone to add to my list of people who have an open mind and are willing to learn. It looks like she will be an ally in any other future efforts I undertake to educate my LGBT center on issues of accessibility.
Armed with the syllabus, I then began to use google and other methods to search for the readings in alternative formats discovering that less than one third were available. Given a couple of weeks, I might have managed to work things out, but within the time constraints of a 6 week course, I felt it was not a reasonable endeavor nor was it a reasonable accommodation for my LGBT center to make.
I attended one more class, to get a sense of how the readings would be used and decided they were too central to the discussion for me to simply skip them. I explained this to both the instructor and the point person.
I have learned a couple of lessons from this experience. First, simply telling someone a blind person is going to be in their class is not enough. They need to be educated as to what that means. Explicitly. My mistake was to assume it was clear. As one friend has often told me, "Educate. Clarify. Remind."
Second, don't assume who will and will not understand disability issues. My surmises in this situation were totally off.
There have also been a lot of reminders of lessons I should have learned long ago. When you identify a problem related to access, the next thing out of your mouth should always be the solution. The formula is identify the problem, try to relate it to something familiar to the target individual, and give a preferably simple solution.
It has also become clear that I need to cultivate calm. Educate from a place of calm. Meditation here I come.