Ug Ug

Longsuffering readers may remember me writing about the frustration I feel when I walk through the streets because other people don’t look where they’re going. They have no awareness of their own body space. I wrote about it way back in November 2004 and it provoked a comments frenzy (14 comments!) the like of which I rarely see these days as everyone’s stopped reading or something. Still, I’ll bat on. People are still getting under my feet and it still makes me feel edgy.

Imagine my surprise: recently I’ve discovered that the situation is just as bad now I’m on crutches. I’ve gone from feeling edgy to murderous, though. On the 4 occasions I’ve been back to my doctor, I’ve had to go through the entrance and exit doors 8 times (4x2=8, you see). Only once has someone held the door open for me. Sometimes people go through the door without looking behind them, so they didn’t know I was coming. This is almost excusable, but still thoughtless. Surely looking round to see if someone else is coming through the door is one of the first things we’re taught about manners?

Worse still are the occasions when people are going through the doors and look around and see me approaching on my crutches. You can almost see them running through the calculations in their minds. “Man with crutches five paces away. He’ll take about three seconds to get here. I can’t wait that long. Besides, by the time he’s got the door open on his own, I’ll be too far away for him to catch me up and hit me for being such an ignorant Neanderthal.”

Last time it happened I shouted something at the person anyway, even though they were too far away to hear. The receptionist no doubt thought that I had an appointment with the Tourette’s Syndrome clinic.

Walking along the street is just as bad. Astonishingly, people don’t give me any room. They keep walking in a straight line, expecting me to get out of their way. What’s even more astonishing is that these people who seem determined to walk into me, or force me to change direction, are staring at me. They stare because I’m on crutches, I suppose, and they’re trying to work out why. Despite the fact that they’re looking at my legs and the crutches, they don’t change their course.

Neither do I. I think a few people have some nasty bruises on their shins from my flailing crutches already.

Ella says I’d make a very good grumpy old man. I can manage on just one crutch for short distances now and I want a walking stick instead.