THURSDAY JULY 19TH
Disabled Attendee: in a lot of ways, Comic-Con is actually less ADA* compliant than in the past.
Me: can you give me an example?
Disabled Attendee: yeah, there’s a special ADA shuttle that brings folks to the show. When I was preparing for my trip I couldn’t find any information on it. They hid it at the very bottom of a PDF of all the other shuttles and it took me a long time to find it. Then, after talking with a staffer, I learned they wanted to put the ADA shuttle at Petco Park.
Me: that’s like, a mile from here.
Disabled Attendee, patting their chair: exactly. Now, I can go all over San Diego in this thing… but there’s this thing called battery life?
Me: how long you got?
Disabled Attendee: I’m not totally sure. It’s a rental, and clearly brand new, but I don’t want to push my luck.
Disabled Attendee: heh
Disabled Attendee: so I have really bad arthritis in my knees right?
Me: I mean, I didn’t know that but ok
Disabled Attendee: so I can walk, just not for too long. I remember the first year I did Comic-Con in a wheelchair, and that was just a regular wheelchair with no motor, and my spouse was pushing me around and they could BARELY move me. They’re struggling and struggling and then they look down at me and say, “Would you please… pull off… the brakes?!”
Disabled Attendee’s Spouse: heh. Yeah. I about killed you.
Me: This is what marriage should
*Americans with Disabilities Act