BuzzFeed Published Their Most Offensive Post Ever Yesterday

BuzzFeed's Rachel Sanders published a post entitled "17 Cooking Gadgets That Will Destroy Your Faith In Humanity." She also managed to imply that those with disabilities and/or limited mobility are "a plague on this earth."

Yesterday, Buzzfeed's Rachel Sanders published a rather ableist article, where she openly mocked the those who might need to use certain as-seen-on-TV devices to make the preparation and service of food a bit, (read: a lot,) easier. Not only was her article offensive, it was just plain lazy writing. As a twenty-three year old, (and very much not lazy,) woman who suffers from limited mobility thanks to an autoimmune disease, I was not amused.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHH, I would love to USE A GODDAMN SPOON, but seeing as my immune system thinks it is absolutely hilarious to attack the cartilage in my hands and wrists, (and pretty much everywhere else in my body, really,) standing and making a repetitive motion, with my hand tightly grasped is extremely painful. You know that pain you get when you grip a pen/cil too tightly for too long? Imagine that times about ten. All day long. That's why I use my stand mixer instead of a spoon about sixty percent of the time. I know, I am so lazy. How dare I grace this earth when we have been blessed with such superior beings as you.

Did you know that 67% of statistics are made up on the spot?* I'll tell you one that isn't though: roughly 46 million adults suffer from arthritis, and they usually do suffer in silence. That doesn't even include children that suffer from arthritis. Shockingly enough, arthritis does make it very, very, difficult to use a spatula. I have lost count of how many times I have made dinner, only to be unable to remove it from the pan/dish/pot/etc. properly, and dropped it all over the floor. It's really awesome to spend hours making dinner for my mister, only for the climax of the project being my dog eating a casserole off the tile, and my trying to cover up my tears before anyone notices I'm crying.

*That one was totally made up, too.

Actually, holding the large bottle, is so hard for my hands. They are very weak, so weak that I am often unable to grasp any strange, round, slippery, object. What to do? Probably spill it all over myself as usual. Who will help me? Well, that awesome looking SodaCaddy looks like it would spare me from the embarrassment of having to ask someone to pour my orange juice for me, (which inevitably results in my either looking like a lazy adult-child hybrid, or forces me to disclose my disease which I'm not always up to talk about.)

I don't have children, but I get the feeling that the general consensus is that having one choke on a hot dog is a bad, (and fairly common,) thing. Just like the spoon, holding something small, (while using it precisely,) is extremely difficult. I personally tend to avoid knives, because I have nearly cut off the same finger three times. This is the same reason why I would not give my imaginary-child the knife and tell them to go to town on their own hot dog.

Seriously, I don't get what's wrong with you.

As I've stated nearly ad infinitum, arthritis comes with a one-way-pass to Spill-Town. I do not like having apple juice all over my dresses. I do not like having lemonade all over my pants. Shut the hell up and quit judging people who have different needs than you. If you were to see a man using a walker, would you call him lazy because he chose the elevator over the stairs? Because I really get the feeling that you are the type of person who would.

SELF-FEEDING.
MADE.
EASY.
FOR CHILDREN.

I seriously have sat here repeatedly covering my face for at least a minute trying to formulate a response to this, but I can't. I just can't. You are so ignorant to anything in the world that doesn't personally involve you it is insane. It's called My Spoon My Bowl, because this is the child's spoon, and the child's bowl.

My name is Kathryn, I am a highly educated, twenty-three-year-old woman who happens to suffer from a debilitating disease. Whenever I pour something, (hopefully with my special SodaCaddy!) it requires two hands. So unless I'm playing some sick carnival game where I only need to get one out of a thousand jelly beans in a Ziplock or something, I need something to hold the bag open for me. If my mister is home, awesome! Two sets of hands! However, if he's not I have to MacGuyver some sort of cereal-box plastic bag holder to achieve my goal of- wait for it- not spilling something everywhere.

Pop quiz! Which one of these things is easy for me to use?

A. A spoon.

B. A knife.

C. A hand-held vegetable peeler.

D. None of the above.

If you guessed 'D,' you are not Rachel Sanders. Oddly enough, my 88-year-old grandmother, has one of these at her house from the 40's which she has used for over a half-century to peel apples for pies. It's not a new invention by a long-shot, so I guess your faith in humanity has been waning since before your birth, Rachel.

Now, I could be a bit sensitive to these matters, but there are a lot of us out there. After reading the comments on Ms. Sanders' post, I can clearly see that I am not the only one who found her post to be passive-agressive, abilist, elitist, and just plain stupid. I do have better things I could be doing with my time, yes, but I happen to have a huge problem when a company that attempts to pride themselves as being all-inclusive, has an employee blatantly throw up a middle finger to the inclusion of all.

It is true that I don't know Ms. Sanders, but I also get the feeling that she's just not the type of person I really want to.