polite snappy answer

[badgerbag]

This worked well today. Lady on bus, asking me really loudly, "What's wrong with your legs?".

I smiled and answered equally loudly, "If only it were that simple!"

"What?"

"I said, if only there were a good answer to that question!"

She was extremely confused and began to ramble about skiing.

Moomin developed a huge smirk. When we got off the bus he went "Mom you totally owned her!"

It was satisfying, not obviously rude, and saved me from having to say "I would prefer not to explain all my medical history to some stranger on the bus."

Comments

[serene]

Miss Manners would love that! (Her suggestion is often "Why do you need to know?" but yours is even nicer.)

[dharma_slut]

Good for you!

[jesse_the_k]

I've used a variation — "we don't have time to go through all the things" — but I like yours better.

My impolite snappy answer is, "Oh, are we playing 'what's your damage'? You can go first."

Scores of times, people have started out with truly offensive or off-point questions. After the first dozen, I tried to elicit what they really wanted to know. Which was often something I could answer, and help point them in a useful direction. Frex:
them: Are you completed paralyzed?
me: No, but why are you asking?
them: Well, I'm not completely paralyzed, but I wonder if using a wheelchair would be a good idea?
me: Could be. Here are places you can try out wheelchairs and see if they work for you ....

As you know Bob, I'm a bit of an evangelist.

[badgerbag]

I have also sometimes had that happen -- someone starts out being super intrusive and they turn out to have a motivation like, oh, my mom is having trouble walking etc etc. I do try to be a diplomat a lot of the time and tend to record the times that I don't have the patience!! Maybe tomorrow will record every time it happens and think about patterns... When I think about yesterday for example I had The World's Most Boring Conversation for me, oh, about 6 times in 3 hours...

[wild_irises]

This conversation makes me think of Nalo Hopkinson's comment in the current WisCon Chronicles, closely paraphrased here because I'm too lazy to go get the book.

"Did I encounter racism at Clarion? Did I encounter oxygen?"

[heyfoureyes]

ha that was a good one!

i'm with jesse that sometimes you can 'teach' but hell.

[heyfoureyes]

my mother used to be asked this sort of thing a lot because of severe asthma and lung problems.

and -- she never was offended but she is socially a little clueless.

and she would give people a FIREHOSE OF INFORMATION. WAY too personal, WAY more than they asked for. They would back away. Heh.

[vom_marlowe]

I'm embarrassed to admit that I once shouted "What's wrong with you?" to someone who asked me that. *wince*

[badgerbag]

I have said that back to people in many & varied ways! No, it doesn't really feel good but I occasionally just get fed up!