'You don't look disabled' - asking for your best comebacks.

[MycatsaPirate]

I have a blue badge and drove to the shops today to get about 6 things. I parked in a disabled bay. A man in the passenger seat in the next car plus an older man in the car in front were both staring at me. The older man kept looking into his car and then back at me, he was saying something to the driver and then kept staring at me. They had just arrived and he wasn't moving away from the car. Clearly he was waiting for me to get out so he could lambast me for parking in a blue badge bay (and no he wasn't waiting for anyone else, as soon as I put the blue badge up and got out he walked off).

So I get this alot - you don't look disabled!

Well no, I probably don't because I have all my limbs and I assume that a vast majority of disabilities are invisible. So here are my best comebacks. Please share yours and feel free to steal any you like for future use!

• Thank you! I try not to let my disability define me as a person.

• oh! What DOES a disabled person look like?

• Well, you don't look like you say stupid things but you just did! Looks are deceptive aren't they?

Frustrated with pain today - not grumpy - just tired.

I say with a bright smile, 'Thankyou' then leave a long pause and with no smile at all, 'But actually I don't think you meant it as a compliment. Did you?'

Makes them squirm. Rude fuckers. I might use the Tourrettes one when I'm next accosted, that's genius.

My son has a blue badge and doesn't look obviously disabled (his mobility is pretty good). If anyone says that about him I say

"Excellent! Can I just ask you to put your diagnosis in writing so I can give it to his special school, and his consultants. It's such a relief to hear that he doesn't actually have any disabilities"!

I've used that a couple of times and they go off muttering loudly...

Well you don't look like a future paraplegic.. but keep going...

Tourette's one is the sort of thing my mom would say!!

When people say to me that I don't look disabled I usually just reply with "I know, it's great isn't it?!" with a giant smile and walk off.
Although I have lost my shit with some people and have shown my bag a few times.

"You do look like a twat, though" :)

My personal choice would be
and you don't look stupid...

tourettes you cunt now fuck off'

We don't have a blue badge, so don't use disabled parking spaces, but I do need to use the disabled loos with DS2. I emerged to a telling off, once, with an old lady leaning in and telling me that this was a disabled toilet. My response, after a bit of a blink blink moment was a simple "I know, that's why we're using them." I was dying to offer a game of disability top trumps but both of the boys were chomping at the bit and we needed to get away.

I'm not sure it's worth engaging with them. I wouldn't waste any headspace thinking about clever witty replies. I'd simply tell them they are being really stupid and that they can't possible know if someone is disabled or not.

My friend has experienced this a few times. She has a blue badge because of her DS. Unfortunately, some passers-by seem to think a blue badge is incompatible with her large and shiny 4x4, and that she must be parking in a disabled space purely through some sense of entitlement

mustiwearabra if you're really struggling on a bus and feel in danger of collapsing and no one is budging, the safest thing to do is sit down on the floor and get your head down. I've had to do that, before - I sat on the step up towards the back because it was really hot and i felt ready to faint, but we couldn't have the window open because a poor girl near the back was really suffering with hayfever and her eyes were streaming. (That was one hell of a miserable journey, for everyone and the bloody driver just kept letting more people on because some of the places served only got a bus once an hour!)

I was going to suggest '...and you don't look like an arsehole' but your version is much politer than mine smile

I was challenged once by another blue badge holder who was in a wheelchair. I told her that the blue badge was for my (then 3yo) daughter (who I had got out of the car and put in her pushchair). It annoyed me because she saw a mum and two children and made a huge assumption that we were parking in a blue badge area and shouldn't. Was her experience up to that point only of people parking there who also have wheelchairs?

I didn't have a witty comeback as I was too surprised.

A dear friend who has since passed away and didn't suffer fools once said, "No, my sun-tan is a side effect of chemotherapy, my hair looks great because it's a wig. I've got the Blue Badge because I'm dying. Now sod off."

Obviously it made them feel small so they just slunk off. Cruel but effective.

I was literally just about to write a thread about this exact same topic it's the only reason I'm logged into mumsbet right now.

Today must be Tosser Thursday OP

My aunt and I were just shopping with my dd (6) who has ASD and when we were sat in a cafe and dd was hand flapping and humming and someone came over and asked me what dd 'had' I told her dd was autistic and she said 'oh it's such a shame because she's so pretty and looks so normal too'

I said 'yeah she missed the memo that people with disabilities are supposed to be weird and ugly looking' because I felt like saying fuck off would be frowned upon by my elderly aunt

Then the woman huffed off!

I've wished since it happened I had said something a bit more articulate and less childish so I'm hoping to get some good ideas from this thread too!

Her reply was 'tourettes you cunt now fuck off'

Barrytheunicorn I reckon your comeback was spot on. I hate twats who say things like that about my boys (both have ASD), or worse "at least your DD is normal"
My response to that is usually "shows how much you know, none of us are fucking normal!"

I once had a man say to me in Morrisons that I shouldn't be parked in "the old peoples spaces" (this was after he stood and watched me get my scooter back in the car) I simply said "see that sign over there? I'll read it since you obviously can't, it says blue badge parking not ignorant old Bastard parking" I may have lost the moral high ground slightly on that one...

OP: Someone waited until you put up a blue badge in a blue badge place, then said nothing, but you suspect he would have said something if you didn't have a badge? Is that a summary of your OP?
That's a good thing isn't it: pulling someone up for parking in the bay without a badge, but not if they have a badge?

Oh look, here we are talking about people being rude and ignorant regarding disability and yet here are the same people laughing at fake stereotypical offensive Tourettes jokes

We live near our town centre with plenty of on site parking. When our lovely cleaner started with us, I told her to park at the house any time she wanted to go into town,
"No, it's fine, I've got my Blue Badge".

Mycat thank you so much for these comebacks!...I have an invisible disability and it drives me nuts when people go 'you don't look ill'...had the other month by a man trying to chat me up...god wish I'd said something like this....

the other one people say is 'are you feeling better at the moment?' because I don't mention how I am feeling and I am lost for words, mainly cos all my energy is going on having a conversation while dealing with continuous pain and exhaustion at the same time....I suppose a simple 'no' would suffice....

I'll read through the others and log for future use

I have disabled dc's. Ds2 is 8 and the only one who understands the comments like that. He used to burst into tears, try to get out of his wheelchair and usually falling over in the process. Now he makes this growling noise and chases them, trying to run them over. Meanwhile ds1 is running after him, cheering him on.

I can handle having disabled dc's but the stupid comments about not looking disabled really get to me.

Marvellous suggested responses from some.... I'm now going to play the devil's advocate.
In the case the OP outlines, I really don't think you should complain about the men waiting to check she was entitled to park there.
She proved she was by displaying her badge - they promptly left I am quite capable of watching someone park and waiting to check that they do they display their blue badge. My Mum has a blue badge and last time I took her out we discovered that a 4 x 4 without a badge was parked in one of the the designated spaces (and the others were all full up). If someone had seen the person whose only handicap was ignorance park in that space I would have been grateful to them for tackling the inconsiderate driver - it would have saved me from having to park on a double yellow line and offload my frail elderly mother and her crutches to stand on the narrow pavement waiting for me to find an available parking space and walk back.