My mother is a freak!

[Moggie]

Well, i guess you can throw me in the pool with the rest of the freaks, I was born with XLH (please feel free to do your own research) and as a result my legs are bowed, my hips rotate (not swing) when I walk, my arms are bowed and yes the bowing is to different degrees in each limb, so the lengths are different. This also means that at 4ft 10in tall I am legally a midget.
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Treasure, my grandmother, mother, sister and niece also all have XLH. I'm a foot taller then my mother who is 4ft 9. She says she only keeps me around to get stuff off the top shelf and change the light bulbs. I'm curious to talk to you later about doctor experiences and such.

Sometimes people are twerps. Most people can't actually see the universe outside of their own heads and they have no idea how one little off-hand comment could possibly hurt. You do need to go and talk to the manager and perhaps the girl who made the comment might be able to apologize when she understands what she did. I hope so.

[ralerin]

I have scoliosis and kyphosis and I am, literally, a hunchback. Quasimodette, if you will.

Boyfriend has Marfans/EDS/whole host of other diseases. The EDS makes him a freak by nature because it's more of a gender-unequal disease, 80/20 split with females being the 80% and males 20%. Because of the Marfan's, too, he has to be fat because he will look like an alien. He is tall but his arm span is greater than his height-your armspan when you are normal is supposed to be less than or equal to your height. By staying fat, he looks more in proportion.

HH-I, too, would join the camp in screaming bloody murder; except I would've started with a simple "Excuse me? Can you repeat what you just said? I was so sure I misheard you?" to save face.

[Bella_Vixen]

Late to the thread, but...







Give your Mom a hug for me.

Y'all let me know when the CS bus is making the trip. I'll bring the roadtrip music. And some food.

[shankyknitter]

Late to the thread but that...that... GRRRR *wordless rage of a pissy red head* I understand the hair trigger (I've got one too), and frankly this isn't you over reacting at all. An over reaction would be taking a few swings with a well balanced sharpened ax. And even then not by much. This is some some bitchy mcdouchecannoe not understanding basic social graces. No one has the right to insult someone else (excepting good fun of course, such as calling a close friend something insulting as a pet name out of affection).

Give your mama a hug, a hot cup of tea, and an offer to have her clothes tailored to her measurements and hand sewn by someone trained by a professional seamstress (so this broke collage student can fix clothes instead of buy new ones) free of charge except shipping here and back.

Edited to add: I realized after I hit post my righteous indignation about insulting people was kind of canceled out by me calling the woman in question a bitchy mcdouchecannoe. Not deleting it, just owning up to my own contrary imperfections as a human.

[Antisocial_Worker]

I mentioned the offers to her and she was very grateful. She said she'll let me know the next time she buys something new.

[Bright_Star]

That's bullshit! I would have torn that bitch a new one for saying what she said & DEMANDED to see a manager & INSISTED on an apology AND for her to be reprimanded. I would have made a scene & it wouldn't have been pretty.

[iradney]

Love to your Momma HH.

If I could sew, I would offer to make alterations. Unfortunately, the Post Office in my country cannot be trusted further than they can be thrown, and by the time the clothes got back to your Momma, they would be out of fashion

[Sparky]

What upsets me so much about this is the fact that I don't expect the world to wrap its cudgels in something fluffy before employing them, but then I'm young and I can still take a beating. My mother can't. She's taken life's beatings relentlessly all her life and it has broken her.

Here we have a woman who is only in her early 60's whose life has been so desperately sad and unfulfilled up to this point that the only reason she even stays alive anymore is because my father -- who is missing both legs, whose kidneys don't work, and who is quite stupid -- needs her to take care of him. That's it. She's got her suicide planned out in the event he dies first.

Her suicide. I can say that without screaming. That should tell you a lot about us as a family.

Hell, I can see her point. Everything that ever mattered to her has been taken from her. She can't see, can hardly hear, can't even go for walks anymore -- and taking walks was once one her great pleasures in life. Basically, looking as nice as she can for church is literally the only pleasure she has left in life and for a little while even that was taken from her by that... woman... at the dry cleaner's.

And frankly, that makes me want to weep.

That right there is exactly what should be put into a letter and mailed to the manager of the dry cleaner's.

If you promised not to make a scene, don't. It usually doesn't help anyway. But if you let this go unreported, you leave that person free to inflict damage on more people.

Reporting it will also give the manager -- and possibly even the employee -- a chance to apologize. This might not happen, but if it does it might make your mother feel better.

It's possible that the woman didn't mean anything by the term "freak." She might use it all the time, might have been joking, might not have realized it was insulting. Your poor mother was very hurt by it, and at the very, very least someone should tell the woman this so she knows to watch her mouth in the future.

Hugs to all of your family.

[firecat88]

Many hugs to your mom, HH, and to you for wanting to stick up for her.

Also, count me in as another 'freak'. My right leg, as a result of my hip being out of joint, is longer than the left by a good inch-and-a-half or two. On top of that, though, my spina bifida has done weird things to my body, proportion-wise. My arm span is 5 feet and small change, which is how tall I'm technically supposed to be and would've been had I been born 'normal'. My legs, however, are shorter than they should be. It does make shopping for clothes a pain.