You know, walking sticks have another very cool perk. I always take one with me on the plane when I'm going on a long flight. I might not need it when I embark, but odds are that I will need it at the other end. People are so kind when they see you struggling through the airport with your luggage cart and a cane. I remember I was coming home from Ft. Lauderdale a few years ago after vising one of our KAers. After a 3 hour bus ride, I arrived at the airport, checked in for my flight and was told to "go over there" for security. I went to what I thought was the line (since that's where I had been told to go), only to be told by the security person that I was jumping the queue and had to go to the end of the line ... which went to the entry door of the terminal, out the door and down the sidewalk a ways. I looked at Missy Bureaucrat in blue, looked at the line, then looked at my luggage and cane and almost wept. This was pre-Remicade and three hours on that little mini-bus had done nothing good for the state of my SIs or my mood. I guess my chagrine showed on my face because Missy Bureaucrat's senior came up and asked what the problem was. She told him that I had jumped the queue, and I explained that I had been directed there by the lady at check-in. He looked at me, my luggage and my walking stick and then looked at the line. "Can't you see she is in need of assitance?" he asked Missy Bureaucrat (who didn't even have the grace to blush). Then he turned to me. "Miss," he said, "you don't need to go to the end of the line. Just come straight through here." And that was that. He was my hero that day. Hell, anyone who calls me 'Miss' at my age (I was almost 40 at the time) is a hero!
The way I see it, if you're young and already need a stick to walk, you deserve all the consideration you can get.
Warm hugs,
