Challenge #01756-D295: Equal Access
And you don't get your driver's license back until you've helped repair and restore a car for someone in need. And this was actually done to a group of young "Hoons" for acting like -well- "hoons". -- Knitnan
People tend to think that 'equal access' means denying something to the abled. Cutting down those with an advantage to the level of the disadvantaged. Removing something that is already there. Such can be the case, but it also involves improving things for those who just can't.
And in the case of Max Terindale, serial occupier of handicapped parking spaces when he was not, himself, disabled... the courts had decided on a unique punishment.
Installing access assistance for the disabled. Which began with adding curb cuts to sidewalks in areas that were low on the government's repair list. A process that involved adding a ramp to the safer side whilst he messed around with concrete and the bolts that would hold the friction bubbles in place. And he would not get his license back until the entire neighbourhood was fully accessible.
It was hot work in the open sun with random people throwing their half-finished drinks at him because his work was in their way.
He never expected thanks. That's why it was a punishment.
But he got thanks anyway. A relieved voice at the curbside ramp said, "Lord bless you and all your works."
Max looked up. He'd thought everyone in a wheelchair was old, but this person was in their late teens if they were a day. Fresh-faced and smiling. "Um. You're welcome?"
"I've lost count of how many times I almost ate bitumen on this curb. This is going to be such a good change."
It made a difference to three elderly people and four mothers with strollers and five teens on skateboards and one little kid who loved her Rainbow Sparkle rollerskates. And that warmed Max's heart more than a little. It made having drinks thrown at him a little more tolerable.
Next on the order of things was adding sound cues to the crossings. So that the blind could hear when it was safe to cross the road. Max had never thought of it, before. He hadn't encountered anyone who was blind, and therefore didn't think of them. They simply didn't exist as real people. Until the day that he saw one or two of them feeling for the buttons and had to tell them that it was still being installed.
"Thank you," they said. "It's nice to know we're finally going to be safe when walking to the bodega."
And there was a week when he was making noise cancelling headsets for the autistic kids. So they wouldn't be hurt when going about their daily business in a noisy city. They'd still be able to hear the important stuff, but the things that were too loud would be reduced to a level that they could handle. It had never been a problem for Max. He had assumed that it would never be a problem for anyone.
It took him two years to be done, in the end. Installing things all around a low-income neighbourhood to make things better for everyone who lived there. Encountering solutions to problems that he hadn't known existed.
When he got his license back, he was careful to never park in a disabled space ever again.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / RioPatuca]
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