Sorry for the cliffhanger. Where were we?

Oh yes, the TSA debacle.

My layover in Washington, DC was a strange and enlightening experience to say the least. From the moment the plane touched down and everyone disembarked, I was hit with a kind of culture shock I’d never experienced before. I’d only been away for a few months, but in that time, I’d been so immersed in British culture that I forgot what it was like to live in America.

Firstly, I was used to near total independence in Oxford, being able to walk or take public transport everywhere I needed to go, and that’s simply not possible in my home city, where the infrastructure isn’t designed to accommodate pedestrians safely. Consequently, I realised that whenever I visit, I’ll have to rely entirely on my sighted friends and family for transportation again, something which burdens them and makes me feel uncomfortably dependant.

Further—and at the risk of grossly overgeneralising American culture—I wasn’t used to how unnaturally happy everyone seemed to be. Albeit airport employees are paid to be friendly to frazzled travellers, but it seemed like these people were being super friendly to me. I imagine that they had been carefully trained on How to Help Disabled People, so when they saw my cane, they sprung into action, descending upon me in droves.

Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but I was still a bit taken aback by just how eager they were to ‘help’ me, even when their help was unhelpful.

For one thing, people kept asking me if I wanted them to get me a wheelchair. I understand that they were probably required to ask for liability reasons, but it still made me feel uncomfortable. I’m eighteen years old, I’m a dancer, I go on long bike rides, and I walk everywhere on my own with no trouble. I’ve read that some fellow blind people gladly accept the wheelchair, arguing that it’s far more efficient to be chauffeured directly to your destination than having to navigate an unfamiliar place on your own, and I respect that. But to me, being offered a tool that I don’t need felt weird and wrong.

Once I’d convinced the airport employees that my eyes are the problem, not my legs, they settled for having me personally escorted to my destination. This too felt strange (likely because the attendant insisted on grabbing my arm and propelling me along rather than offering sighted guide properly), but given the labyrinthine nature of the terminal, I was grateful for the help. I collected my checked bags and carried them about fifty meters to a different baggage carousel (apparently also to satisfy some legal requirement), and proceeded through security, where the real fun began.

My helpful attendant had me skip to the front of the queue (perks of being blind), and I emptied my pockets, took off my shoes, and put everything in a plastic bin to be X-rayed. As I turned to walk through the metal detector myself, the person manning the machine stopped me, gesturing to have me put Homer on the conveyor belt too.

Oh dear.

I think it should be illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act to take a mobility aid away from someone, but the people behind me were starting to become impatient, and I didn’t want to cause a scene. So, I folded Homer up and carefully placed him in the bin with my shoes.

The conveyor belt inched forward and swallowed him up, and I walked through my side of the metal detector, caneless. My backpack emerged, my shoes, and then… CRUNCH.

(Oh dear)2

Homer had unfolded inside the machine, and now he was stuck.

Instead of stopping the conveyor belt and extracting him, the attendants ignored my protests and left it running. Several of their colleagues emerged and started trying different things to get him unstuck, peering inside its aluminium depths incredulously and jabbing it with broomsticks in a vain attempt to dislodge him. When after maybe ten minutes they succeeded, they decided that Homer hadn’t yet gone through enough torment, so they inspected him thoroughly to make sure that he was indeed a cane and not some kind of weapon disguised as a blind person’s mobility aid. At last, they returned him to me, presenting him with flourish as if he were a king’s sceptre.

Embarrassed that I’d delayed the security line so long and caused so much trouble, I awkwardly scuttled to my gate. On the way, I noticed that Homer was behaving a bit strangely, but I assumed it was because I was still rather panicked from the TSA debacle. Once I arrived, I had some time to sit down and reorganise myself, and I noticed something peculiar: Homer’s tip was bent at around 45°.

(Oh dear)↑↑↑2

So now Homer is bent! He wanders to the left every time I use him! I am not amused.

The silly thing is, I could’ve avoided this whole situation if I had stood up for myself in the first place. It was completely out of line for them to ask me to relinquish Homer when he was clearly a mobility aid, and they likely would’ve realised that if only I had said something instead of passively letting them take him away.

Advocating for myself is a skill that I’ve really struggled to acquire, even after years of work and much urging from my teachers and friends. I suppose like any skill, self-advocacy takes practice to acquire and maintain. Especially now that I’m beginning to become a Real Adult™, I realise that it takes a lot of effort to make my voice heard, but it’s incredibly rewarding once it is.

In any case, I got home safely, and I even got to practice my French with the lady next to me on my flight home (thanks Solange!). Now that I’ve successfully made it once, I’ll have more confidence for next time, and I look forward to many more adventures to come.

Do you have any crazy airport stories? Leave a comment to share them with me.