I'm faking it!

Saturday evening we worked the gallery. Our friends came over during dinner time and we picked something up to eat and had dinner at the gallery around the desk. We were chatting having a good time and as people walked in, I'd greet them with a welcome and please excuse us for eating in front of them. No big deal.

Until one guy with his family walked in and I welcomed them to our gallery. The dude walked past me and sharply states, "you're faking it". Of course, I look at him bewildered. Excuse me? I said. "You're faking it, I just saw your legs move", he says. He caught me off guard because here I was having a good time with hubby and friends and now this guy is confronting me about something he knows nothing about. I quickly came back, but in shock said, "not all people in wheelchairs are paralyzed". He comes back with a, "that's not for real is it"? Now I'm getting pissy say, "yeah I just went and bought this so I could sit in it and look cool." Yeah but I clearly saw you move your legs" he says, I say, "that's because I can move my legs, they are weak and I have bad balance." My friends who have never experienced my world of ignorance before are sitting there with their mouths open in disbelief. Hubby and myself start to get very explanitory with the guy and you can tell he thinks we are pulling his leg. He looking like us like yeah right, who'd you get that from. We're not pulling a fast one on him, he knows better.

Now don't get me wrong, there is some part of me that is saying to myself.......Wow I don't look like I should be in a chair.......I don't know what that means, but it feels half way good. Snapping back into conciousness realizing that doesn't matter it's just the sheer rudeness of the way he said it. He didn't know the kind of person I was or if my life was so fragile that I couldn't handle things said.

He just basically walked past us into the back part of the gallery with his family and we continued on eating in shock at the balls of this guy. I realized I needed to calm down because this was our place of business and it didn't look good with us getting all huffy with this guy to the new customers walking in not knowing what just happened.

The rude dude and his family leave and our guy friend says, "What the Fuck"? My husband agreeing with him has to shhh him because we still had customers and our friend even apologized to the people for his language and he explained. They were understanding. Then our other friend says, "I can't believe that". I told her, "welcome to my world". She comes back saying, "I'm sorry". "What are you sorry for", I said. , She said, I am human and I am sorry that another human would say something like that to you. I told her...... it's just ignorance.