Right now, I’m on a combination of meds they don’t allow me to drive on. It’s annoying, but before that my fiance was doing most of the driving anyhow, so the only change is that now I use cabs when he can’t give me a ride. On the whole, it hasn’t been a big deal.
Friday, I called a cab to take me to physical therapy. The cab got here and I walked out to it, with Hudson, a novel, and a change of clothes for exercising at physical therapy. When I get to the cab, the cabbie is talking on his radio, and he locks the doors right before I try to open them. I heard the sound of the locks going, and I assumed he was unlocking the doors.
He gets off the radio, and gets out and announces to me that I needed to tell the dispatcher that I have the dog, and that he has to put newspapers down on his seat. He then spends the next 5 minutes scolding me for not having something to cover his seat. He tells me that the city government will fine him, and that the other driver of the cab will give him a hard time over the smell (from my very clean dog?), and goes on and on and on.
Look – I’m disabled. By the time I have all the things I need to be running around on a chilly day and waiting for people and doing physical therapy (or school, for that matter), I’m about maxing out my carrying capacity. I can’t bring along one of the rugs I put down for Hudson when I have someone else to carry things. And I don’t have a responsibility to do so.
We get to my physical therapy location, and I use the credit card machine in the back, and then he asks me if I am going to tip him.
No. I do not like people who expect me to do all kinds of bending over backwards for them because I have a service dog. I do not tip people who scold me. No way. You want a tip, you treat me with respect. I would not have objected at all to him putting newspaper down for the dog, even though it made Hudson uneasy to lie on crackling paper. But scolding me? Uh-uh.
Wow. Yuck! And in addition to not tipping, you could call the cab company (if you had the spoons, which you probably don’t), and explain to them about the ADA and discriminatory treatment based on your use of an assistive device (a service dog).
I do intend to call the cab company (eventually, anyhow – I ended up in the ER today, and you know how many spoons that sort of thing takes!) Fortunately, I use that cab company a lot, so in general they are very good. I’ve had to complain about a driver before, and their manager was cool about it. I expect he’ll be good this time, too.