The Irishman and the Cashpoint

(Why People Get Angry when I Thank Them)

Just after I finished university the Irishman started as my PA a few days a week; the German recommended him to me. This is how I acquire PAs: through friends. It creates a good network. I’m lucky enough not to need professional carers as I don’t need any ‘personal care’. All I really need is food shoving in my face which most people can do — unless they are disabled. Is that discrimination?

About the second or third time I had the Irishman, we went into town to get some supplies for maintaining living — probably something food-based. As I was celebrating finishing uni I was out partying a lot, and let’s say there wasn’t a lot of food in my diet at that point.

Combine this with being hyper-stressed: for the last three months I hadn’t had any rental income from my house because one of my housemates/tenants totally, utterly dicked me over by convincing most of the other housemates to leave with her as I was evicting her for not paying rent, amongst other things… If you want to know what stress is like, be a landlord in your final year of uni, and oh yeah, be disabled (spoiler), not that fun…

In town with the Irishman, my brain is not on, gone into autopilot, fried from final year and scrambled from the night before. On the discovery of having zero monies in my wallet, I slowly make the connection: I need to get some out the cashpoint, and so, meander towards one with the Irishman following.

I need his help to get cash out because of past failed attempts. Flashback to the first time I tried to get money out on my own at 16 because I was trying to be ‘independent’:

1. Lining up wheelchair with cashpoint.

2. Pulling wallet out jeans pocket whilst seated. Wriggling and hopping. Probably looks like a fit.

3. Getting card out wallet while bending over lap fumbling. Not a great look.

4. Picking up card without dropping it. Holding it horizontal while squeezing it between thumb and fist, with all the force of maximum spasticity pressing onto that tiny area on the knuckle.

5. Gritting teeth at the pain, knuckle indenting card. Spastics aren’t endowed with delicacy, having only one grip setting.

6. Using the cashpoint for support by lightly smashing fist against it.

7. Breathe. Let the wave of pain pass over. Prepare for the hard part.

8. Trying to push card into tiny slit-shaped hole till it slides in the slot. (Like the kid who couldn’t get the shape in the right hole so he gets sent away to ‘special school’ because they thought he was mentally retarded but he actually has cerebral palsy and oh my God that’s me).

9. Jabbing keypad with index finger supported by thumb for the PIN. Discovering you do not have the motor skills for this operation as you randomly hit the number pad with no link from the PIN in your mind to the PIN your fingers are pressing.

10. After multiple failed finger attempts, input PIN with nose. A last resort; now you’re just a lonely, lost spastic kissing a cash point.

11. Repeat step 9 to select cash amount by smashing again with finger as nose can’t reach.

12. Taking card out.

13. Putting card somewhere safe.

14. Taking money out without destroying it altogether with the spastic vice grip.

15. Putting cash in wallet without the notes folding up or getting caught or blowing away in the wind…

16. Wipe off excess blood.

If the card or wallet is dropped at any point, you must either ask someone to pick it up and risk them calling the police or get out the wheelchair and try to pick it up, risking people calling men in white coats. If you’re disabled you kind of have to think of yourself as a freak to try and predict people’s reactions, especially if/when you’re on your own and bleeding. You think of yourself as normal because you don’t know any different but to the rest of the world you are a fucking oddity. If the above incidents don’t occur after dropping an item, repeat previous step and continue.

Unfortunately on that first attempt at 16, I didn’t get to the last step. After somehow completing steps 1 to 10, including selecting how much money I wanted, I was elated and proud of myself for getting cash out on my own. This was quickly followed by the sinking dread and disappoint as my frenetic spastic hand does not possess the ability to pinch with my arm extended as the knuckle doesn’t replace the grip force of an able opposing thumb and index finger, and so was just aggressively stroking the slit trying to grab the card as the machine mocked me with its intense beeping. Poof, the card disappeared never to be seen again. Leaving me confused and bewildered, trying to press cancel and to get it back out. I didn’t know what to do as a disabled 16-year-old so I went to the police station for advice. It was shut. I was alone once more.

Present-day

With that experience seared into my memory, I make sure to get money out the cashpoint when I have someone with me. This is one of my ‘safety systems’ so if my wheelchair breaks down I can get a taxi home, or if I want to buy a girl a drink I can be quick off the mark before some other dickhead swoops in and pays for everything, taking all the glory and leaving me looking like a poor spastic. Everyone wants to buy you drinks when you’re disabled, it’s like being a movie star without getting laid. So be prepared people, it’s not as good as it seems.

At the cashpoint, I ask Irishman to insert one of my cards. I type in the PIN with my slightly improved coordination and ask Irishman to get up the balance. “FUCK!” No money! I press cancel. Card returns with the mocking beeping sound. Ask Irishman to get the other one because I’m a dickhead and have two accounts, one for the running of the house, the other, personal. “FUCK!” Again not the amount I was expecting. A bill must have come out. I’m so screwed. Three months without tenants. Now it’s just me living there. Need to work out how to fix up the house with no money. My brain is so scrambled. I maybe did too much of ‘something’ stuff last night. The sun is too bright, cooking my brain even more. I just want to get some food.

Card returns. Irishman takes it and puts it back into my wallet while I’m muttering to myself about that fucking dickhole of a housemate.

Me: “Thank you.”

Irishman: “What?! Don’t fucking talk to me like that!”

What. This wasn’t the response I was expecting.

Me: “…Huh?”

Irishman: “Don’t fucking speak to me like that!”

Brain quickly boots into life, calculating why I got that reaction. The most likely possibility is Irishman misunderstood what I said. This happens a lot as I sound like the lovechild of Scooby-Doo and the Cookie Monster.

The queue behind me is getting longer. I can sense people starting to stare as a rather angry, loud and upset Irishman is having a go at a spastic in a wheelchair. An unusual sight. They’re probably thinking: “Should we step in?”

“Do you really want to fuck with a mad Irishman?”

“Good point, let’s see how this unfolds.”

Brain is now in ‘Sherlock Homes mode’ considering all the variables and possibilities, trying to work out why the fuck there’s an upset Irishman in my face and how to de-escalate the situation before it becomes a double hate-crime.

Did I accidentally give him the finger or hit him?

Did I look at him funny with my spasticated eyes?

No! He said, “Don’t talk to me like that”.

What did I say?

Can you get the card… you’re a card? Maybe I sounded demanding. GET THE CARD! Damn, my speech does that without me realising. Doesn’t help that I’m so tired from getting fucked up… I can’t control the tone. Sound pissed off when I’m not. Same with my face. If I’m pissed off or confused and I happen to look at someone they think I’m pissed off with them.

Wait.

I said thank you — what could that sound like?

Thank you.

Hank you.

Thank cue — weird insult?

Insult! Wank you?

Wank coe?

Thank cue?

Fuck cue?

Fuck you?

Fuck you! Fuck you! He thought I said fuck you! Ah shit! No wonder he’s pissed off! He thinks the stupid spastic just insulted him for doing what the spastic asked!

Me: “No mate, I said, ‘Thank you’”.

Irishman: “Yer I heard what you said!!”

Ah God damn it! Why did I think repeating myself would work. Of course he’s not going to think, ‘Ah maybe the spastic’s trying to say something else’. Now there’s a crowd forming.

Quick, think of another way to say ‘Thank you’, without sounding like ‘Fuck you’.

Thank you is being polite.

Being polite is showing respect.

This is a fail.

Errrrrr.

Thank you means, being grateful.

Ah, I can say I’m grateful!

This all happens over about 10 or 20 seconds tops. Enough time for people to watch but not to step in. My next challenge is to get an upset Irishman to listen to me — people aren’t very receptive after they think you said ‘Fuck you’ to them. Maybe this is what my speech therapists were talking about when they said I needed a speech aid…

“No, I’m grateful.” I’m thinking if I say ‘no’ and use different sounding words and syllables I might be able to communicate that he misunderstood me — a good tactic if I’m in a situation like this…

Thankfully he understands me. It’s very interesting to see someone go from being angry and upset to being calm and appreciative… In one moment the situation is defused, leaving the crowd around us confused and bewildered. As quickly as it started it ended.

Irishman explains he thought I was swearing at him for getting the wrong card out. I reassure him I know it’s difficult to understand me at first. I’ve heard recordings. I sound like Scooby-Doo. I can’t even understand myself which is pretty depressing. Plus I recognise people try so hard to understand me, when they don’t they feel they’ve failed in some way. My speech is abnormal due to pretty severe brain damage. Miscommunication isn’t anyone’s fault. It’s pointless getting annoyed if people can’t understand you when you’re the dickhead who chooses not to use a speech aid. An added complication is that when people finally learn to understand me easily, they start getting annoyed with people who can’t. And so the vicious cycle continues.

The point is that you don’t have to be socially disabled by your disability: you can effectively become more able if you know how to make people comfortable with it. Others are usually more worried, concerned, nervous, intimidated by your disability than you are — especially if they don’t have much experience around disabled people. I feel a responsibility to take charge of these situations and not to take advantage of vulnerable ables; remember people, sometimes it isn’t discrimination they’re actually just scared and confused.

Years later I was the best man, by default, at his and the German’s wedding. So I guess that’s a happy ending.

And now it makes a lot more sense when people look grateful when I swear at them.