I Worked Quite Well With My Disability. That Never Stopped Customers From Saying Wild Things To Me.

It took me over 20 years to get used to people staring at me.

I was born without a left hand — my arm stops just below my elbow — which means I face lingering eyes and probing questions most places I go.

No matter how much I try to cover up my arm, I know that the intrusive discerning public will still be there waiting for me when I choose to show myself again, so I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to live my life hiding away out of fear of some gawking eyes.

However, there was a time that I made it my mission to hide my disability. I’d wear long sleeves, even in boiling hot summers, or tilt my body so that it hid my arm in photos, or even fold my arms so that it looked hidden under the other.

I had a prosthetic made for me when I was 15 — another attempt to cover up — but I had only worn it a few weeks when my arm started to ache; the false limb was cumbersome and heavy, and so after that I was set on embracing my uniqueness.

I was relieved when I began to feel more comfortable with my body. It felt unnatural trying to cover up all the time. I never wanted to go back into hiding.

Still, no matter how I felt about myself, I couldn’t control how other people felt about my body or, more shockingly, what they would say to me about it while I worked a public-facing customer service job.

Every day seemed to offer new surprises and things were said to me — often in the guise of “help” — that I never thought I’d hear come out of people’s mouths.

Once I was assisting a customer and he suddenly blurted out, “Can I send a prayer for you?”

At first I was confused. I didn’t understand why I needed a prayer sent on my behalf, and I wasn’t particularly religious, so I declined his offer. He then explained that he’d