“There is no greater 
disability in society 
than the inability to 
see a person as more.” 
Robert M. Hensel

I recently had a front-row seat to an unsettling scene at the grocery store. Standing at the checkout line at Safeway with a basket half-full of groceries, I found myself behind an elderly woman with just a handful of items in her arms. In front of her in line was a middle-aged man dressed in a business suit. His basket contained about a dozen items. As the checker began scanning the items from the cart, the man barked loudly at the courtesy clerk with alarming aggression.

“Stop! Don’t touch my food! I’ll bag my own groceries. Just get out of my way.”

Trevor has been a courtesy clerk at Safeway for more than six months. He has bagged my food with care and proficiency on several occasions. I always appreciate that Safeway provides name badges for their employees, because I like to address them by name, especially the courtesy clerks, several of whom are developmentally disabled, to express my appreciation for what they do. Like several other courtesy clerks at Safeway, Trevor has a disability. He has Down syndrome.

As the man in the business suit aggressively usurped the task of bagging his own groceries, Trevor cautiously took a step back. It was difficult for me to accurately comprehend the expression on his face. Was he afraid, startled, or offended by the man’s harsh words and tone? The checker put a hand on Trevor’s arm, assured him that he had done nothing wrong, and gave him an encouraging wink. The customer just continued bagging his items.

Before I had the opportunity to respond, the woman in front of me spoke up boldly.

“Wow! Good for you, sir! You’ve managed to demonstrate to all of us that young Trevor here has a few things you are obviously lacking — dignity, character, and basic human decency, to name just a few. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

I was so grateful the woman said these things, because if I had said what she said, there may well have been an ugly confrontation at the check stand. Men, especially arrogant men, don’t like being called out by other men. Their response is often to lash out at the person who called them out. Because these words came from a frail, elderly woman, however, the man wisely chose not to respond. What could he say? He looked around at all of us who had witnessed his rudeness. He put the last few items into the bag, moved the bags into his cart, and quickly walked away.

I thanked the woman for speaking up. We all thanked Trevor for doing such a good job, and apologized for those few customers whose ignorance prevents them from seeing a developmentally disabled person as a full human person, deserving of the same respect as everyone else. Trevor just smiled.

Thanks to the courage of that elderly woman, my faith in humanity was restored that evening.