I'd like to speak to your manager. Unless he has the same accent.

Poodleface and I had been to Texas once before, when my mother wanted to rescue a poodle named Sage she'd found on a shelter website.
I don't think I've talked about Sage.
Sage is a former puppy mill mommy that my mother wants to train to be a therapy dog. She's a little shorter and a little heavier than Poodleface, loves people, loves to be petted, and still occasionally ducks when someone raises their arm. I once threw a dog toy over her head (Poodleface was standing behind her) and she ran out of the room. I'm not sure I've ever felt worse. I sometimes call her Soft Sage because when we got her the shelter had given her a ridiculously poofy poodle cut and you could bury your fingers in two inches of fur on her topknot without ever touching the dog.
I suppose I'll have to blog about that trip later.
Anyway, I'd already been to Texas once, and I'd already had uncomfortable encounters with people with thick accents who hadn't heard of service dogs. But the one I had on this trip was worse, for several reasons.

• It was dark out.
• No other employee with an accent I could understand overheard and rushed over to sort things out.
• My father walked in.

It was dark outside and bright inside and the gas station had large windows, which was probably pleasant during the day but at night felt very vulnerable. I went in to buy some chips while my father was putting gas in the camper.

The man behind the counter immediately stopped me and told me that I couldn't have a dog inside. I said it was a service dog, which 90% of the time makes people immediately step back and leave me alone. He shook his head and said something quickly I couldn't understand with his accent. 

I gave my little speech on how service dogs were protected by federal law. He had his arms crossed and was still shaking his head at me, occasionally talking over me to say that I should leave. I got Poodleface's license out of his vest and showed it to him. I said that Poodleface was the same as a seeing-eye dog and that, really, he couldn't throw me out. He still said no, and something about his bosses rule that I didn't really get because, again, he was talking too fast in an accent I couldn't understand. I put the license back in the jacket and got out one of my ridiculously friendly cards, folded over once and with happy rounded edges, which boldly proclaim "I'm a service dog!" and go on to list all the rules and regulations. I held it out to him. He shook his head and refused to take it. I stood there, with my back to these huge dark windows, feeling small and alone and waving this card and wondering if, maybe, I should just give up. I felt like I was in the wrong here, and I felt powerless, and he was taller than me and I couldn't understand him. 

I heard the door open behind me, and then my father was standing over my shoulder, repeating what I'd said to the man who was still shaking his head. I stood in the background and felt horrible and embarrassed while they talked, and when the man finally threw up his hands and said okay and walked away from the counter to the other end of the store, I decided that I didn't really want any chips and ran like hell back to the camper. I was so ashamed that my father had had to step in like that.

That was really horrible.

I think I'll stay out of Texas from now on.

Do I really take that long?

We'd stopped at a gas station in the middle of a long drive home from a day trip out of town, and I was looking forward to getting something cold to drink to combat the summer heat. I took Poodleface over to use the grass before we went inside. The man behind the counter immediately told me to take my dog back outside. "It's a service dog," I told him, pointing to the jacket. He crossed his arms and glared. "We only allow seeing eye dogs."

"Service dogs are allowed everywhere. It's federal law. I have his ID card if you want to see it," I offered in the bland tone I usually adopt when arguing service dog policy. He shook his head sternly at me, but didn't object when Poodleface and I headed for the neon RESTROOMS sign. 

I'd seen an ice cream cooler by the window and was envisioning myself eating a popsicle, but when I looked they didn't have any of the brands I usually buy. I took one out and started reading the ingredients list.

"Look." said the man, sounding very annoyed, "Is there something I can help you find?"

I looked up from the list. "I have severe food allergies," I told him, "I have to read this."

"Oh, do you?"

I chose not to answer that and went back to the list. It checked out okay, so I put it on the counter and reached for my money while I waited for him to ring it up. He didn't, opting to hold it hostage while he interrogated me a little more.

"What kind of service does that dog do?"

"Medical alert."

"Which means what?"

I gave the popsicle a pointed look. He scanned it, accepted my money, but withheld the change. I took a deep breath.

"A medical alert dog accompanies a person with a hidden disability and alerts them if they're going to have an attack or need medical treatment. Seizure dogs are medical alert dogs."

He studied me for a few seconds. "Do you have seizures?"

I don't even tell people who aren't rude insensitive gits why I have Poodleface because so many of them decide I've found a clever loophole and exploited it to get a pet with a VIP pass, so I simply held out my hand for my change, which I got ten seconds later when he realized he couldn't make me say anything else. 

I went back out to the car with my popsicle, thinking about what a jerk he was and how I hate people like him, when I realized that maybe I had been taking a little too long to read the popsicle. How long do normal people take, anyway?

I do that while I'm shopping too, although for things I buy every time I just flip them over and briefly scan the list, not really taking the time to study it in-depth. Do I annoy other shoppers? Does it look strange? I'd never realized anyone might consider it abnormal.

What do you think? Do you ever read things before you buy them?

How I learned to respect my elders. (not really)

Most people are reasonably nice about my service dog. Some touch without asking, but since they nearly always have the decency to be embarassed when I tell them to stop it's hard to hold a grudge. However, there was one woman, who I remembered this morning on my way to the mall for some new pants, who apparently decided that acting embarassed was a stupid course of action when the whole thing was really my fault anyway, which has now earned her a post on my blog. Because I'm still pissed about it.
I live somewhere very small. Just big enough for businesses to come in and try their luck, but small enough that they're sent packing months later, completely broke. In my seventeen years I've watched five pet shops, two toy stores, one Payless, one music store, and a lot of stores I'm probably forgetting meet their doom. I spend a lot of time hoping that the book store isn't going next, and it's just passed the four year mark so I'm cautiously optimistic that it's going to be ok.
Back in January I went to the mall with a friend. We wandered around for about twenty minutes before going into the novelty shop that had arrived five months ago. We looked at some figurines and some stress balls and some large light-up plant-type things, and we were holding up some stretchy shirts and laughing about them when the one adult manning the store came up behind me and began petting my dog. I turned around and told her to stop. My next sentence was going to be about how my dog is a service dog and they can't be petted, but I only got part of it out before being severely scolded for my rudeness. Shocked, I looked up from my dog and saw that her expression suggested she was sucking on a lemon seasoned with Dramamine that had said something nasty about her mother. Surely, I thought, she was angry because my friend and I had been being loud, not because I'd told her not to pet my dog.
Nope, actually. It was the dog.
My friend stepped up beside me and told her politely that not even she could pet my dog, that was just how service dogs work. She cut her off as well to further criticize my social skills and say that the way I'd spoken to her had been horribly rude and I obviously had no respect for my elders. Beginning to panic, I stammered something about how respect didn't play into it, she just couldn't pet my service dog, it said so on his jacket. Once again, she talked over me about my rudeness, this time adding that I should be ashamed of myself. And then she threw me out of the store.
For telling her not to pet my dog, she threw me out of the store.
I was pretty sure that was illegal in some way, and tried to say so. She repeated that I was rude and that I should learn to respect my elders. Then she pointed toward the door and pursed her lemon-sucking lips even tighter. I considered asking to speak to her supervisor. I considered pulling out my cell phone and threatening to call the police and ask if she was allowed to throw me out for this. I considered behaving like the teenager I was and leaving in a storm of profanity. Not being particularly brave, the method of exit I chose was to gape at her for a few seconds, then slink out the door with my cheeks burning and blood pounding in my ears.
My friend and I found a new store to be loud in, occasionally tossing her more offensive statements back and forth and listing all the reasons she was a bitch. And then we realized something sobering. I'd left my coat in the store.
We returned to find it lying on the counter and the woman determinedly ignoring us as she fiddled with the register. Having had time to think about what I should have done, I asked to speak to her supervisor. She told me she was in charge here. I told her I was sorry if I'd offended her but service dogs just can't be petted. She told me, again, that I was rude and needed to respect my elders and threw me (and my coat) out of the store. Again.
By this time I'd overcome my initial fight-or-flight response to having and authority figure so angry at me and decided that I was no longer scared and was instead pissed as hell. I saw no disrespect in telling her she couldn't pet my dog and was unimpressed by her continual use of the "I'm your elder" card, in my opinion only slightly less irritating than the "It's because I'm black" card. My friend and I went down the the mall office intending to file a complaint, but found a sign saying that it was only staffed on the dates listed on the door, the day we were there not being one of them, and that if we wanted to report something we would need to call the listed number. So we got out my cell phone and called the listed number, got an answering machine, and discovered from the message that we needed to be able to tell them the name of the store. So my friend ran off again to find out what it was while I sat on the floor outside the empty office in the ghost town of a mall that apparently ran itself. Once we had the name we called again and left the message.
Two weeks later the store went out of business. I'm not going to pretend I was sad.