Good Dinner on Wednesday. Uneventful, if ya know what I mean.
Large crowd, new faces. Lots of people taking their food back to their rooms to eat. That debate continues.
After Dinner we did a run to the food bank. And the winner of the Donation Of The Week award was...
A one gallon jug of vinegar! Yay! Vinegar! Nutritious and delicious! Spread it on your sandwiches. Put it in your tea. Feed it to your children. Yummy.
I had 3 passengers, two women I've just met, one of whom has the most awesome tat. The face of a sweet eyed, rosebud mouth girl, peeking out from behind her V-neck shirt. Quite lovely.
The other passenger was GJ, a guy who doesn't live at the Motel. He's a nervous person, not socially comfortable, tall and gaunt and easily perplexed. He has a hard time focusing on details. He walks quite a way every week to get there, and gets R to phone me on his behalf if it's too cold or raining and he needs a ride.
GJ was late for Dinner tonight because he'd been looking for his food bank card. Had a hard time finding it, but eventually made it over. He's lost his card a couple of times before and they charge for replacements. We debated on the ride over there whether it was $5 or $1. Probably $1.
But the woman who usually mans the desk gets impatient with these things. She has to look up your number in the book, check the name against your ID, write out a new card. This process always includes a lecture and lots of head shaking and tut-tutting, while people are standing in line behind the offender, waiting. It's embarrassing.
Especially if you can't remember your card number. Then the look-up takes longer and the tut-tuts get louder.
So I teased GJ in the car about losing his card again. "She's going to get cranky at you." Ha ha. I'm so funny.
We got there and the women went in. GJ hung back outside to get organized. He wanted to have his card in his hand when he went in. Only he never came in. I went back out to see where he was and he was standing on the sidewalk, emptying his pockets trying to find his card again.
He knew it was there somewhere. I laughed again and said, "Now you're in trouble."
Because I'm an idiot.
He didn't think it was funny. He has a hard enough time communicating with people, with facing up to authority figures that this was undoing him. He couldn't go in if he didn't have his card. He went through his pants pockets, shirt, vest, anorak, his bag. It wasn't there.
"She'll yell at me. She'll get mad. She's always yelling at me." He was genuinely upset.
Hoping to help, I told him that it wasn't that woman this time. There was a man at the table tonight.
He said, "Thanks." and poked his head in the door. But in the few minutes he'd waited, the line had gotten long enough to be intimidating and he just couldn't do it.
He decided he could wait until next week. Maybe he'd find his card by then. So we stood outside and chatted and he showed us the case he carries his phone in "to reduce the radiation". And he walked home from there.
I know it wasn't really my fault he didn't go in, but I didn't help, being flip. If it had been me and I'd lost my card, and the woman was tut-tutting at me, I'd tut-tut back. I'd probably find it a bit amusing and shrug it off.
But for people who've spent their whole lives down and who have social challenges to begin with... it's a deal breaker. And I should have known that by now.
So I felt like I should apologize to GJ, but I'm not sure for what exactly. "I'm sorry I didn't assume you couldn't cope."
No.
r
Large crowd, new faces. Lots of people taking their food back to their rooms to eat. That debate continues.
After Dinner we did a run to the food bank. And the winner of the Donation Of The Week award was...
A one gallon jug of vinegar! Yay! Vinegar! Nutritious and delicious! Spread it on your sandwiches. Put it in your tea. Feed it to your children. Yummy.
I had 3 passengers, two women I've just met, one of whom has the most awesome tat. The face of a sweet eyed, rosebud mouth girl, peeking out from behind her V-neck shirt. Quite lovely.
The other passenger was GJ, a guy who doesn't live at the Motel. He's a nervous person, not socially comfortable, tall and gaunt and easily perplexed. He has a hard time focusing on details. He walks quite a way every week to get there, and gets R to phone me on his behalf if it's too cold or raining and he needs a ride.
GJ was late for Dinner tonight because he'd been looking for his food bank card. Had a hard time finding it, but eventually made it over. He's lost his card a couple of times before and they charge for replacements. We debated on the ride over there whether it was $5 or $1. Probably $1.
But the woman who usually mans the desk gets impatient with these things. She has to look up your number in the book, check the name against your ID, write out a new card. This process always includes a lecture and lots of head shaking and tut-tutting, while people are standing in line behind the offender, waiting. It's embarrassing.
Especially if you can't remember your card number. Then the look-up takes longer and the tut-tuts get louder.
So I teased GJ in the car about losing his card again. "She's going to get cranky at you." Ha ha. I'm so funny.
We got there and the women went in. GJ hung back outside to get organized. He wanted to have his card in his hand when he went in. Only he never came in. I went back out to see where he was and he was standing on the sidewalk, emptying his pockets trying to find his card again.
He knew it was there somewhere. I laughed again and said, "Now you're in trouble."
Because I'm an idiot.
He didn't think it was funny. He has a hard enough time communicating with people, with facing up to authority figures that this was undoing him. He couldn't go in if he didn't have his card. He went through his pants pockets, shirt, vest, anorak, his bag. It wasn't there.
"She'll yell at me. She'll get mad. She's always yelling at me." He was genuinely upset.
Hoping to help, I told him that it wasn't that woman this time. There was a man at the table tonight.
He said, "Thanks." and poked his head in the door. But in the few minutes he'd waited, the line had gotten long enough to be intimidating and he just couldn't do it.
He decided he could wait until next week. Maybe he'd find his card by then. So we stood outside and chatted and he showed us the case he carries his phone in "to reduce the radiation". And he walked home from there.
I know it wasn't really my fault he didn't go in, but I didn't help, being flip. If it had been me and I'd lost my card, and the woman was tut-tutting at me, I'd tut-tut back. I'd probably find it a bit amusing and shrug it off.
But for people who've spent their whole lives down and who have social challenges to begin with... it's a deal breaker. And I should have known that by now.
So I felt like I should apologize to GJ, but I'm not sure for what exactly. "I'm sorry I didn't assume you couldn't cope."
No.
r
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