Disability Can Be Funny (Trust Me)
Photo by Kelly Dawson
About a decade ago, while I was waiting in line at a music festival, it suddenly became very clear that I needed to use a bathroom. I had spent the morning chugging water, but I didn’t anticipate the length of the bus ride and amount of people waiting to get in. None of that mattered, anyway. I had to go. I had to go immediately.
“We have to find a bathroom,” I said to my sister. She could tell by the panic in my voice that I was serious, but she couldn’t just wave me away to find a toilet on my own. She had to push my wheelchair. “Go faster!” I yelled as she navigated wood chips, grass, and dirt. When we got to a group of attendants, and my sister squealed, “Where are the bathrooms?” to a sweaty man who couldn’t care less, he pointed to a porta-potty in the distance, just beyond the multiple rows of a roped-off queue we were required to roll through first.
