He’s So Lifelike! – Do I seem that stiff?

One day I was at the mall with a friend of mine doing a little shopping.  We were in a department store, and my friend was checking out the clothes racks while I waited.  The racks were pretty closely packed together, making it very difficult to get between them, so I just waited in the aisle while she browsed.  I was just sitting there, as still as a quadriplegic gets, watching her, when out of the corner of my eye I see this woman coming around my right side from behind.  I still didn’t move, but I could see this woman getting closer and closer, until she was less than a foot away, blatantly staring right at me.  I let this go on for a minute, still not moving, until I finally turned my head to her and said, “What?!”

Well, this woman must have jumped back about three feet with this look of complete astonishment on her face.  She was truly startled.

“Can I help you with something?” I asked.

“I- I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I thought you were a mannequin!”

It was all I could do to keep from laughing in her face.  I’m thinking, “So, when did they start putting mannequins in electric wheelchairs?” This was before the days of the American Disabilities Act and political correctness, so they didn’t even have mannequins in manual wheelchairs.

With I grin I replied, “No, I’m not.  I’m what you call ‘dis – a – bled.'”

Well her face was beet-red, but I couldn’t help it.  She apologized again and went back to her shopping.  Interestingly enough, this wouldn’t be the last time I would be mistaken for an inanimate object.  Mmmm, maybe I need to work on my personality!