Wednesday, August 19, 2009

over encumbered

I’m working my way through my usual bloglist after being away from all internet activity for a while. Sciencewoman has a post here that reminded me of one of my travel/fieldwork pet peeves.

I am fairly young and able-bodied. I’m not generally travelling with a horde of small children. But at times I’m forced to lug extremely heavy and awkward stuff around in crowded places.

If you’re unencumbered and you see someone who has obviously had a long day, is limping, has several bandages on the hand she is using to grip her stuff, and is fighting with a door/trying to cross a street/trying to haul her stuff up a flight of stairs, the very least thing you can do is avoid getting in her way. I don’t usually ask for help from strangers, but I’d like to avoid getting run over by cars in crosswalks, having doors slammed in my face, and getting cut off by people going up stairs when I’m obviously struggling.

1 comment:

ScienceWoman said...

It doesn't seem like to much to ask really.

I've found that people tend to be much more courteous about stopping for pedestrians in the crosswalk if you have a plainly visible stroller. But you have to mentally get over shoving your child out into the street to get traffic to stop.