Yesterday was a rainy day in the Portland area. Looking forward to attending a meeting with some fellow members of our local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, I was distracted from thoughts of website accessibility (the topic we were going to discuss). I was thinking about how I was going to get to the meeting.
A bus line runs from near my house to near the meeting location, but I don’t know how to walk from the bus to the building. Normally, I could ask people for directions. In the rain, though, getting help is always much harder. Knowing people were coming because I initiated the topic of website accessibility, I would have felt bad had I been late.
Eventually, I decided to take Lyft to and from the meeting. I knew the rides and the tips I would leave would cost me roughly seventy dollars. Part of me resented having to pay seventy dollars to attend a meeting to discuss making a website more accessible to people with disabilities. My resentment was furthered by the fact that had I known the walk from the bus to the building, I would have taken the bus. Still, I was determined to go to the meeting. By the time I arrived at the meeting, I was reminded why I was there in the first place. I was even more committed to Bernie Sanders’s campaign and the ideals of democratic socialism. And I was thinking about how far my life had come and how I wanted my driver to realize the increased advantages I now enjoy.
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