Emily Ladau:
Hi, I’m Emily Ladau.

Kyle Khachadurian:
And I’m Kyle Khachadurian.

Emily Ladau:
You’re listening to another episode of The Accessible Stall.

Kyle Khachadurian:
What are we going to talk about today, Emily?

Emily Ladau:
Confronting ableism in public.

Kyle Khachadurian:
So, you mean we’re not going to talk about any pop stars or anything?

Emily Ladau:
No, we are not going to get into the Lizzo conversation because the Internet already got into the Lizzo conversation. Instead, we’re going to talk about something else because we know our places.

Kyle Khachadurian:
You know what, that’s great. We should do that. But first, can I offer you a story?

Emily Ladau:
It’s Story Time at The Accessible Stall?

Kyle Khachadurian:
You know it. Story Time Seven, baby. I am disabled. I know this might come as a shock to some of you.

Emily Ladau:
Hold on, can we process that together for a second?

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, and hold space for each other, baby, because strap in.

Emily Ladau:
Wow.

Kyle Khachadurian:
My girlfriend is also disabled.

Emily Ladau:
Oh my God.

Kyle Khachadurian:
She is blind. I know, it’s a-

Emily Ladau:
You are really… This is too much.

Kyle Khachadurian:
It’s a circus. Today, we wanted to clean our fish tank because we’re leaving for a while and the people that are feeding, we didn’t want them to think that we were barbarians, so we cleaned the fish tank. The way that you do that is you take some water out of the fish tank to put the stuff in your fish tank, in the water, so that everything just stays in balance. I accidentally scooped out a fish, which made me have a spasm.
You might know that people with cerebral palsy have spams. You might not know that I don’t. I do sometimes, but they’re very rare. One of the ways that I have them, in fact I think the only way that I really have them, is I get startled. I don’t know what it was so surprising to me about seeing a fish in and around, and near a fish tank in a fish tank full of water mind you. In fact, not only did it startle me for no good reason, I actually warned Courtney that this might happen.
I was like, “Sometimes they crawl in the cup and I can’t ever catch them in the net.” I did that whole thing. Then I poured out some water into this big bowl that we had set up for the situation, and there was a big slimy thing in it, and it freaked me the (beep) out. I mean to my core. I felt it in my chest. Just thinking about it is getting me nervous again, which is so silly because it’s a fish in a fish tank. I cannot stress enough how normal that is.

Emily Ladau:
Fish dad is having some problems here.

Kyle Khachadurian:
It was like a lion, yeah you’d be surprised. Anyway, I fall backwards into my patio door. I catch myself, and I actually hit the ground, which people with CP, that doesn’t count as a fall, okay? We’ve all done that. But in the process, I have knocked over her plant. Normally, it’s just a plant. But she doesn’t have a green thumb. She’s got like a black thumb. She can look at a plant and it dies. This was the first time she’s ever planted something that didn’t immediately die.
Not only did it not immediately die, today is the day it sprouted. So, I knock over this plant and I’m in pain because I caught myself. My muscles are twitching, and I’m cursing. I’m like, “Ow, oh my God.” All she can think about is that I knocked over her plant that she just spent several days trying to cultivate, praying to every God that it wouldn’t die, and here I am stepping on it.

Emily Ladau:
How dare you murder her plant baby?

Kyle Khachadurian:
How dare I? No, you’re absolutely right. So, then she’s yelling at me and I’m apologizing. I’m not even thinking about… Meanwhile, by the way the fish is in the bowl very nervous because I just ruined it’s day. I took it out of it’s house, and I put it in a much smaller house with no food. Anyway, so after we stop freaking out, apologize to each other, sit down and clean up, we put the fish back and we started the whole thing over again, and it was fine. The plant’s fine. The fish is fine. I’m fine. She’s fine. Everything is fine.
But I don’t think I’ve ever been more reminded so quickly that I was disabled before. I don’t know why on God’s green flat earth I was scared by a fish in a fish tank. That is where they go. That’s my story, and I just wanted to share that with you.

Emily Ladau:
I said that I was going to talking about confronting ableism, or that we were going to talk about confronting ableism, but I think we might to psychologically break down what happened to you.

Kyle Khachadurian:
It was completely ridiculous. Of course there’s fish in the fish tank. Why am I surprised by that? It was like the silliest thing. It’s like, “Oh, there’s animals at a zoo?” I don’t know.

Emily Ladau:
To be fair-

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah?

Emily Ladau:
Yes, there are animals at a zoo, but if I was at the zoo and animal caught me off guard because it wasn’t where it was supposed to be, it would freak me out.

Kyle Khachadurian:
You’re being very charitable to me, and I love you for that. But you’re also completely 100% correct. I was not expecting to catch a fish in the cup, even though I already gave my spiel. I was like, “Sometimes this happens.” And that’s true. Here’s the thing, this was the first time it’s ever happened. I was doing the airplane safety lecture not knowing that this would be the day that something’s going to happen.

Emily Ladau:
All right, you should never get a dangerous pet then, like a snake or a tarantula, because if that gets out, if you see it, you will just startle yourself to death.

Kyle Khachadurian:
You’re right, and I like snakes. I like tarantulas, but I would never keep one as a pet because I would forget that it’s my pet truly.

Emily Ladau:
To be like, “Oh, I’m going to kill it.”

Kyle Khachadurian:
I really would. I know myself. Snakes are cool, but not for me.

Emily Ladau:
I don’t mind the tarantula, but snakes are where I draw the line.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, I know. Emily hates snakes. It’s serious, don’t show her snakes. It’s not funny.

Emily Ladau:
I mean, it’s a little funny, but it’s not funny. It’s not funny to me. It’s one of the meanest things you can do [inaudible 00:06:35] my kryptonite.

Kyle Khachadurian:
One time, I showed her a cute snake in a swear, and I had to warn her five times, this is serious, like it wasn’t scary. You didn’t hate it, but it took all that convincing, and at the end of it you were just like, “Okay.” It wasn’t cute to you.

Emily Ladau:
But you really were very serious. You were like, “Can I show this? It’s cute. I promise, it’s cute.”

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, because I had… Yeah. Anyway, confronting ableism.

Emily Ladau:
Oh, yeah. So now I guess it’s my turn for Story Time because I was the one who was like, “Let’s do this episode.” I have had a couple of things happen to me in the past few weeks, I guess, that have made me think about what it means to actively confront ableism as it’s happening to you. So, not confront necessarily just an encounter, although I want to talk about that too, but what happens when you’re hit with it in the moment, it’s in person, in real life, and how do you react on the fly?
So, I’ve been thinking about that a lot. The first thing that got me thinking about it was I had to go to the pharmacy to pick up a couple of things, and when I came out I was heading to my car and I saw that there was a guy parked in the blue lines next to my van, and was blocking me from getting in the van. So, I had no choice because he was literally just making a move to get out of his car and go inside, so I had to make that split second either I sit there and wait and don’t get into my car, or I say, “Dude, you can’t park there. That’s not legal. Please move your car because you’re blocking me.”
Obviously, I was like, “Dude, you can’t park there.” I said it nicely, but firmly. He was so confused and frazzled, and did not know what to do with the fact that someone just told him that he was parked illegally. He got back into his car and he started trying to get out of my way, and drove straight up onto the curb. I’ve never seen someone so frazzled, just full on onto the curb.

Kyle Khachadurian:
That’s really weird.

Emily Ladau:
Then he was just seemingly having trouble getting his bearings and getting himself into the one of the multitude of available regular parking spots in the parking lot.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Isn’t that funny? I mean, to you it’s not funny, but to me it’s funny.

Emily Ladau:
No, it is funny.

Kyle Khachadurian:
There are 30 spots, and you choose the one that’s the closest to the store because of course you do, but why don’t you choose the one, the second nearest one, that’s not for people in wheelchairs, or who use wheelchairs? Just walk an extra two feet. You can. You can’t.

Emily Ladau:
I don’t understand. I don’t. Anyway, that was one of those moments where it was a little bit of an adrenaline rush for me because I don’t like confronting anything in public, and the fact that I literally caught this guy in the act of the illegal parking, very uncomfortable.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Did you feel outside yourself?

Emily Ladau:
Yeah, I was just like, “Oh my God, we need to get in the car. We need to get home. We need to act. Say something.” So, I was having this split second pep talk with myself. The other thing too, was I had gone for blood work and I was really hungry because I was fasting. I was a little disoriented. I know people are going to be like, “What are you driving for?” No, I was fine. It was just down the street. It was more like, “Oh my God, I don’t want to deal with this right now. I just want to get home and eat something.”
So, I did it. I said something, but then I wanted to kind of… I don’t know if comparison is the right word, but something else came up recently. I was at an event and I had just given an entire speech on why disability is not inspirational. It’s not inspiring to have a disability. Somebody came up to me afterwards and said something about how one of their family members has a limb difference, and doesn’t even consider herself disabled, and this woman doesn’t even see disability, and just going on and on about how disability shouldn’t stop you, and “I don’t even notice disabilities anymore.”
In that moment I was like, “Do I say something?” My parents were looking at me like, “Are you going to say something?” But I didn’t say something. I think it was just because I don’t like confrontation, despite the fact that this is my whole jam, that advocacy. I don’t know what to do with any of this, so you tell me.

Kyle Khachadurian:
I think that it’s time and place. In your first example, you had to go home or somewhere, and you had to do it immediately. In your second example, you just gave a speech or something. Something was already done. The only thing that was a consequence of someone saying to you is that they clearly didn’t listen to anything you said. It’s not the end of the world, although it’s super annoying. So, I kind of get it. No, I do get it, but I also feel your feelings because I got frustrated just listening to that and it didn’t even happen to me.

Emily Ladau:
Then I went home and I was like, “Am I a bad advocate?” Because I was literally presented with the ableism that I’m fighting against, and I’m over here like, “I’m just going to let it ride.”

Kyle Khachadurian:
“You got to pick your battles,” if I may quote two podcasters.

Emily Ladau:
Who said that?

Kyle Khachadurian:
We did. Can you believe it?

Emily Ladau:
That was so smart.

Kyle Khachadurian:
All the back in 2016. Yeah, it’s weird when you’re confronting ableism. It’s just strange because like-

Emily Ladau:
I-

Kyle Khachadurian:
Oh, go ahead.

Emily Ladau:
… feel like yes, this is probably pick your battles part 27 with us, because we’re always talking about that. But for me, there’s also a fear that I want to talk about too.

Kyle Khachadurian:
What’s that?

Emily Ladau:
Sometimes I just get afraid of how people are going to react.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, no that’s valid.

Emily Ladau:
I don’t trust people. For example, I was out with my mom and a friend of ours, and all three of us are chair users. We were all coming out of The Cheesecake Factory, and someone held the door for us and make some joke about the train coming through. I very audibly, because I was just irritated, was like, “Oh, I’ve never heard that before.” Then I thought about it, and it was like he could get nasty. He could get mean. People don’t like it when you don’t find their ableist jokes funny.

Kyle Khachadurian:
I feel like that’s the wheelchair user equivalent of a cashier like, “Oh, it doesn’t scan. That means it’s free, right?”

Emily Ladau:
They must be so sick of hearing that.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yes. Oh, man.

Emily Ladau:
I get scared sometimes. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. This world is kind of bonkers.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah.

Emily Ladau:
When we were talking about this before, you also mentioned… Because when I said confronting ableism, you were like, “Oh, yeah. Encountering. Encountering it.” So, what’s your story?

Kyle Khachadurian:
I realize now that encounter is a different word than confront, actually. I just realized that for the first time today.

Emily Ladau:
Whoa, a dictionary lesson.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Anyway. Emily and I were talking, and I gave her the story of one day my girlfriend and I were on our local college campus. We live in Seattle, which has a homelessness problem, and there are homeless people in lots of public places here. For whatever reason, she wanted to take the scenic route, which in that path was a homeless guy. It was him, and his things, and the space that we were walking in couldn’t have been more than two and a half feet wide. We were walking down a ramp. You know the kind of ramps that turn?

Emily Ladau:
Yeah, they have a sharp turn in them? Yeah.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah. Actually, now that I’m saying this out loud to you, I’m realizing that if you were with us, you would have had to say something to that guy. He saw us and he saw her and her white cane, and he not only got out of our way, but he pointed to where the things are and explained where they were. He was covering all his bases. He was like, “Okay, it’s there, and that’s to your left.” It was just very nice, and we thanked him, and we were on our way.
The fun thing about that is that it’s happened to us together more than once. One time we were at a Target, and a different homeless guy on our block had a bike in front of him. He saw us, and he was like, “Hey, make sure you tell her to watch out for that bike.” Now, I know that she can hear and he probably does too. I don’t know why he said it that way. But we both thanked him for it, and it was kind of a nice thing to do, despite the fact that he assumed that she couldn’t hear either.
That’s the kind of thing that we, or that I, notice when we’re together. I always something like, “People here are so nice,” and she’s like, “No. No, they’re not. That’s just because I’m here with you.” That’s probably true.

Emily Ladau:
So it’s like you’re saying that it’s rooted in ableist assumptions, but they’re overall being kind?

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yes. Yes. I don’t know how I feel about that. Yeah.

Emily Ladau:
I have two stories exactly like that. Yeah. The first one, I was at one of my favorite places in the world. It’s a marina a few towns over from me. There’s a boardwalk, and there’s water, and it’s beautiful, gorgeous. I’m minding my own business. I was with my best friend and her brother. A woman walks by us and goes, “You guys should really be on the other side of her so she doesn’t fall into the water.” Because I was the one closest to the edge of the boardwalk.

Kyle Khachadurian:
That’s sweet. I get it, because…

Emily Ladau:
I’m like, “My dude. Really?” Then the other one was a homeless gentleman who was somewhere in New York City. I can’t remember. But there was a massive crack in the road coming up. He called out to me to watch out for it so that I wouldn’t go over it. Quite honestly, I gave him some money and some food from my bag because on the one hand I was like, “This is kind of ableist,” because I see it. I get it. I think he might have actually told my then boyfriend, oh spoiler alert, I’m single-

Kyle Khachadurian:
She’s ready to mingle. She’s 30, flirty, and thriving, and now I can say that about her.

Emily Ladau:
Oh, shut up. I’ll be 31 in a month, so then it would count anymore. No, I’m not having a birthday. I changed my mind.

Kyle Khachadurian:
You’ll be 31 and 30 done.

Emily Ladau:
I have no words.

Kyle Khachadurian:
I’m turning 31 too, okay? So, whatever you feel-

Emily Ladau:
Yeah, I know. And before me too.

Kyle Khachadurian:
I know.

Emily Ladau:
Kyle and I, our birthdays are what, two weeks apart?

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yes, it’s so beautiful.

Emily Ladau:
Anyway, yeah I know, I just dropped the single bomb. Not the point of this episode. The point of this episode is that I was with my ex and this homeless gentleman had warned both of us about the crack in the road, and I was like, “My guy, I see it. But also, thank you for looking out. I appreciate you.”

Kyle Khachadurian:
A long time ago, I was with my then-girlfriend on Flushing Main Street. It was in the middle of summer. No, it had to have been winter. We were crossing the street, and some lady yells out to us, “Careful, there’s black ice.” And we just scoffed at her because why wouldn’t we see it? Also, there was no black ice. But then we stepped in the road and there was in fact a lot of black ice.

Emily Ladau:
Did both of you fall?

Kyle Khachadurian:
No, neither of us did, but we were both like “Maybe next time that happens to us, we should actually listen and be kind.” That’s why I act this way now. That’s a core memory of when I was mean to someone who I thought was being mean to me, but they were actually super looking out for something that I really didn’t see.

Emily Ladau:
I feel like this is a whole topic unto itself. I mean, it’s one thing when people are doing something not legal and/or being ableist jerks. It’s another thing when it’s technically rooted in ableism, but it’s actually really coming from a good place.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, it’s very weird. Actually, you made me think of another topic just earlier. I’m going to say this now so I don’t forget it, but let us know if you’re listening-

Emily Ladau:
Wait, wait, wait. Let’s share a word from today’s episode sponsor first, and then you can tell me.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Cool. Event alert. The Engineering Health Web at the Kite Research Institute at the University Health Network is hosting a virtual conference on national parks accessibility in Canada. This free event is happening August 23-25, 2022.

Emily Ladau:
Creating an accessible event is important to them, so they’re considering the access needs of their attendees throughout all steps of their planning process. Visit their website to register, or to submit an application to be a speaker at ParksAccessibilityConference.ca. They look forward to seeing you all there.

Kyle Khachadurian:
You mentioned in your story about the speech you gave, that the person who doesn’t see disability knows someone with a limb difference that doesn’t consider themselves disabled. I know a couple of people with limb differences that also don’t, and I know some deaf people that don’t. There are various people that I know that have objective disabilities that do not consider themselves disabled. And I think that that’s interesting because I go through phases myself. I’m like, “Man, am I disabled? Or do I just have CP?” I do that myself, but I go back and forth.
The people I’m talking about don’t. I find them very, very interesting. If you’re one of them, email us. I want to talk about it.

Emily Ladau:
Wow. I need you to hold every thought you have because I have so many thoughts, but if we start doing it then it’s going to be one episode, and then listen to the ad, and then another episode. Do you know what I mean, two different episodes? That’s so spot on though, because that’s rooted in I think a little bit of internalized ableism. It’s rooted in self perception.
Okay, I’m going to stop talking.

Kyle Khachadurian:
No, but it goes back to what we were talking to because when you’re a disabled person, in case you’re listening to this and you’re able-bodied or non-disabled, you confront ableism every day whether you like it or not. It’s just something that happens.

Emily Ladau:
Do you mean confront other encounter?

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, I do. Sorry.

Emily Ladau:
[inaudible 00:22:57] words clear here.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, stop splitting hairs. I do mean encounter. If your somebody that doesn’t identify that way, do you still encounter it in the same way that we do?

Emily Ladau:
Yes. Okay, so here’s actually something I was literally just thinking about. I was reading something and giving some feedback on it, and one of the things that I always look for when there’s any conversation about different types of stigma and stereotype, naming all the isms, naming all the phobias, is “Did you mention ableism?” The thing that I was reading did not mention ableism, so I left a comment in my feedback saying, “Hey, ableism is extremely pervasive, and I’d really like to see it added here as a form of discrimination that we will not tolerate specifically and explicitly.”
I felt like I wanted to give some explanation and justification, even though I shouldn’t have to. What I said was that, “Ableism is not just something that affects disabled people. If somebody has a perception of you as somehow being disabled, whether it’s based on the stigma or the stereotypes that they hold about disability, or their misunderstanding something about you, or they’re just using harmful disability-related language against you, even if you don’t have a disability you can still be subjected to evilism.”
I think that’s what people don’t realize, is that ableism is not this niche thing. Anyone can be affected by it. Yes, disabled people are obviously the most affected by it, but it also affects non-disabled people.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yep. It’s similar to how misogyny affects men. Sexism affects men. Homophobia affects straight people, especially straight men. That’s where a lot of toxic masculinity comes from. We’ll say that, and it sounds obvious to you, listener who’s “woke” like we are, but with ableism it really is you kind of need to approach it with a gentle touch because a lot of people just straight up don’t realize it. I didn’t for the longest time. It’s happens to us too.

Emily Ladau:
Oh, yeah. I mean, I feel like I was full of ableist ideas before I really got into advocacy spaces. I always use the example about how when I was growing up, and I’m sure I probably said this on the podcast at some point or another, but all of the adults in my life would send the message, “Oh, well your legs don’t work, but your mind is fine.” Then I would try to tell everyone, “Oh, my brain works just fine. See, I talk so well.” I didn’t know that was ableist.
I’m not giving people passes for ableism. I’m saying, you can learn and you can do better. I didn’t understand that that was ableism.

Kyle Khachadurian:
That’s what they told my parents when I was born, “Oh, don’t worry. He might not be able to walk, but at least he’ll be smart,” or something like that. It’s like, that doesn’t really… I know what you’re saying, and yes it was 30 years ago. Okay, times change. Maybe that was an acceptable thing to say back then, but in retrospect, boy it really doesn’t mean what you think it does.

Emily Ladau:
Exactly. Exactly. I feel like that is such a common example of ableism, and again, people being very well-meaning when they’re actually being very ableist.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah.

Emily Ladau:
I struggle with that.

Kyle Khachadurian:
I think we all do.

Emily Ladau:
If you call somebody out for their ableism, but they were being well-meaning, it rarely goes over well.

Kyle Khachadurian:
See, would you? Because I wouldn’t. I would never. That, to me… I’m not judging you if your answer is yes, by the way, but that to me is a losing battle. To me, that’s like they did a nice thing. They might have done it for a wrong reason, but I’d rather them do a good thing for the wrong reason than a bad thing for a reason they think is good. I just… Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Emily Ladau:
No, you go ahead.

Kyle Khachadurian:
I was just going to say, it feels like that that’s still a net positive, but I don’t actually… I mean, who knows?

Emily Ladau:
Well see, this is bringing me back to my earlier story about the woman who was like, “I don’t even see disability,” because she meant it as a positive. So, there was this part of me, and again this is me making non-disabled people comfortable, who was like she really means that to be nice. I always say, when I was younger, the best compliment that you could give me was, “Oh, I don’t see you as disabled. I forgot that you were in a wheelchair,” and now I’m like, “Are you kidding me?”

Kyle Khachadurian:
I don’t see color.

Emily Ladau:
Disabled. Yeah, I hate… Don’t say that. You know what I mean? Don’t say that. Don’t say you don’t see color. Don’t say you don’t see disability. Don’t say that because [inaudible 00:28:37].

Kyle Khachadurian:
The irony is if you truly didn’t see disability or color, or whatever, you wouldn’t need to say that you didn’t see it.

Emily Ladau:
Exactly. Exactly. When I was little, it was so ingrained in me that that was a good thing and people weren’t supposed to acknowledge it. Now I think that people who are like, “Oh yeah, this is a good thing that I don’t see disability. Look how evolved I am. I don’t even see your disability. I just see you as a person without it.” I’m like, oh God I really want to tell her that that’s not cool, but also I know she’s trying to be nice.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, maybe I’m a bit cynical, but I wouldn’t confront them in that moment at that place, but in a different setting I might explain to them why that’s effed up, because that would be nice if we lived in a utopia where systemic issues didn’t exist, but because we don’t, it’s actually what you’re saying is “I either don’t know about them, and I’m ignorant to them.” Or, “I do know about them, and I don’t care about them.” Neither are good, despite being well-intentioned.

Emily Ladau:
For this particular woman, she was someone’s personal care attendant.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, well okay, but like-

Emily Ladau:
That added a whole layer of [inaudible 00:29:55].

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, how could you… Okay, all right. Not for this episode, but I think you can tell by the look on my face what I think of that.

Emily Ladau:
Yeah, in case you’re wondering, Kyle’s face was like, “Uh, okay but you’re literally working with a disabled person.”

Kyle Khachadurian:
It’s like you can read my mind. How did you know that? Is it’s because it’s (beep) obvious?

Emily Ladau:
There’re just so many layers to this. There’re so many layers to everything that we talk about, and everything with disability. This one, I have never really figured out the right answer to because there’s so many sides to this. There’s the well-meaning people. There’s the people who are just being complete jerks. There are the people who I’m actually kind of afraid of and don’t want to say anything to. I think about the time that my mom and I were just rolling through a parking lot, and this guy slowed down in his truck-

Kyle Khachadurian:
Oh, God.

Emily Ladau:
… and started making comments to us about who was going to win the race or whatever. Separate story from another story that I know I have told in an earlier episode about a guy who also did that to us, because people love doing that to us. My mom and I were just like, “Hahahaha,” because literally he was like this hulking old white dude, and I was just like, “I don’t know what he’s going to do us if we don’t find him funny.” I know someone’s going to get mad at me for saying that, but I don’t care because I’m afraid of everyone.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, I was going to say, that could have been anyone, really. You know what you should do, this is a horrible idea and you really shouldn’t do this, but it was funny to me when I thought about it, so you should totally do it. You should get a tattoo of a tally mark. Every time somebody-

Emily Ladau:
Oh my God, yes.

Kyle Khachadurian:
… tells that joke, and you should start on like your shoulder and work your way down, and I bet you’d be down to the tip of your middle finger in six months. Sooner.

Emily Ladau:
I love that for me, and if I was willing to turn my body into an art project I would totally do that.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, someone should do it.

Emily Ladau:
I am planning on getting a new tattoo soon though, so [inaudible 00:32:12] do it.

Kyle Khachadurian:
I should get one. I should get one. I like them too much.

Emily Ladau:
You should get a tattoo.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Yeah, I know.

Emily Ladau:
Maybe I’ll get one while I’m out visiting you.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Oh, well if you’re doing that, then I have to do it. There’s just no-

Emily Ladau:
Let’s plan this one offline. You know what, let’s take a poll. Everyone tell us what tattoos we should get.

Kyle Khachadurian:
There are no limits to the things you can suggest, but there are extreme limits to the things we will consider.

Emily Ladau:
Yep, literally will not promise anything. You know the YouTubers who were like, “If I get one million views on this video I’ll get a tattoo of Donald Trump’s face on my forehead.”

Kyle Khachadurian:
Don’t do that. Do you have any final takeaways? I feel like this is one of the more thought provoking Story Time episodes we’ve ever done. Usually, our Story Time episodes are just that, but this one I think we actually gave our listeners something to think about.

Emily Ladau:
Yeah, my final takeaway is sometimes you will find fish in water. I’m sorry. I’m not actually. Oh, if looks could kill. He’s giving me such a face. I’m not sorry.

Kyle Khachadurian:
I don’t have anything to follow up that up with, so I will just say if you want to support The Accessible Stall, you can do so at Patreon.com/TheAccessibleStall. Just $1.00 a month ensures that all current and future episodes of The Accessible Stall remain accessible, and all fish stay in their respective tanks.
Thank you for considering us, and might we say you look great today.

Emily Ladau:
You look so good.

Kyle Khachadurian:
In your fish bowl.

Emily Ladau:
We’re looking at you through the fish bowl.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Good night, everybody.

Emily Ladau:
We love you.

Kyle Khachadurian:
Bye.

Emily Ladau:
Bye.