Last update - 00:00 23/11/2006
Pen Ultimate / Someone palmed my PDA
By Michael Handelzalts
Two weeks ago I wrote in this column - with a measure of self-directed irony, or so I thought - about my encounters, as a disabled person, with good Samaritans (of many denominations) who offer me their helping hand which I sometimes playfully bite. I was "overwhelmed" by four phone calls, three e-mails, two snail-mail letters addressed to me personally, four talkbacks on the Haaretz Web site and one letter to the editor.
The phone calls were, naturally, from family, friends and well- wishers. The letters and the e-mails were from disabled people who knew exactly what I was writing about and sympathized.
The talkbacks were, as is their wont, anonymous. One, whose user name was "Be glad that you're getting help," wrote: "When people don't help - you complain. When they do - you still complain." Another, called "Ziona," wrote (I think partly in jest, but I'm not really sure): "Yes, okay, you are grown-up and self-sufficient, and due to some disability you use crutches and an electric scooter. So, you want us to help you, or not? If you fall, God forbid, should we help you to get up, or not? And when you tackle those hateful (to you) stairs, should we offer help, or not? What should we do so that you won't feel you are being patronized? Offer help? Ignore you? Be on the lookout in case you decide you do need help and are ready to ask for it and get it? Enlighten us so we can learn how to address you without hurting your feelings. We were not patronizing you when we offered our help, and if you did feel patronized, it is another case of 'in the eyes of the beholder.'"
Aliza Nemirowsky, who heads the voluntary activities of the Association for the Blind in Haifa, and herself blind person, sent a letter to the editor (printed in the Hebrew Haaretz Magazine on November 17) in which she expressed her sympathy for what she perceived as my difficulties in accepting my status as a disabled person who must rely on the kindness of strangers. She offered the following advice, based on her own experience: "Respect the good intentions of those who offer you help and learn, when necessary, to ask for help. You may benefit from it."
I'm trying to train myself - and it is not easy - that whenever I am misunderstood, I probably failed to explain myself properly. Before writing another word let me say that I do appreciate people's willingness to help me and my kind - and indeed, to help in general - and the last thing I want or need is to hurt them in any way. And as it is Thanksgiving, well what can I say? Thanks. But, as Ziona justly points out, this is something that is in the eye of the beholder. And I am the beholder.
Not for a moment did I maintain that those who offer their help patronize those who need it. I merely tried to explore and explain the complexity of the "helping bond" and to suggest that it is easier to help than to be helped. He who needs help does not always know what kind of help he needs, but it stands to reason that he may know more about it than those who offer help to him.
Disabled 'lite'
I agree that it is not easy to accept having a disability, but I was under the impression that I manage to be graceful about it. Evidently not enough, in the eyes of other beholders.
I should stress that in my own eyes I consider myself to be disabled "lite" (like Marlboro Lite). Perhaps that is why and how I tend to look at and to see what is going on around me, and why I am not fully immersed in the practicalities of asking and getting help. True, I use crutches and an electric scooter, but I can walk, albeit with some difficulty. When I'm riding my scooter, the crutches are mounted on it in a contraption of my own devising. The solution proposed for "crutches on scooter" by the scooter manufacturer did not suit my needs.
My crutches - electric blue, my source of pride - carry two custom-made small bags for the things I need to have with me: The one on the right crutch stores my Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), while one on the left houses the device's collapsible keyboard. Most weeks I use them together to write this column.
When I wander around town I occasionally go into a shop. As not all stores are easily accessible via my scooter, even with its amazing maneuverability, I get up, take the ignition key and enter without taking my crutches to buy what I need. I usually stand against a wall or counter, my back to the scooter.
Last Friday when I returned to my "vehicle" after one such outing I saw that the zipper on the bag on my right crutch was open and my PDA was missing. As I'm not one to cry over a stolen handheld computer, I immediately began checking what had gone missing along with it. Miraculously, for once I had backed up the files on my desktop computer. I did lose the cell-phone number of the guy who attends to the issues of targeted assassinations in one of the security services, so I'll have to wait for him to call me. I hope I'll manage somehow. I also am missing my high score in the Jawbreaker game, of which I was rather proud.
But after acquiring a new PDA (only to discover the following day that it came in third in a consumer survey carried out by Haaretz), and struggling to install all the software and configure the settings - I concluded that the PDA thief, unbeknownst to him, did me a favor on the disabled front: If anyone had the impression that I claim special privileges as disabled (for that I was taken to task by those who claimed that there is no way to satisfy my disgruntled whims), the thief came (and went) with my PDA. He treated me as an equal. I should be really grateful.