September 28

I went to the Redskins- Cowboys game a couple weeks ago with Dusty. His family has had season tickets for over 45 years and they're amazing- 30 yard line, only 20 rows up. The preseason game I went to went well, accessibility- wise. It was easy and the seats weren't much different. Yet, as we prepared to go to this game, we called the stadium to make sure we wouldn't have to do anything differently. They assured us it would be just as simple and told us to just get there early. And that's exactly what we did. We ended our tailgating early and went inside. We visited guest services then got the run around, being sent from one section to the next. At one point, we actually had good seats in the wheelchair section closes to our regular seats, but were told we couldn't sit there because other season ticket holders needed them. We said "but we're also season ticket holders..." Everyone had said that it was a "first come, first serve basis" and that it didn't matter if you had season tickets. It's a ridiculous system... I mean, someone with season tickets should definitely have priority over someone who is cheering for the other team and might show up to one game a year. Anyways, we were sent back to guest services then to ticket sales and almost 45 minutes later, we had tickets in section 437. Yeah, moved from 103 to 437. HOW RIDICULOUS. Dusty has been going to games as long as he can remember and he's never sat that high...he actually didn't even know where the elevators were because he's never had to use them. (Which is also a stupid system, but I guess that's a different story....the elevators don't have buttons! They told us to just stand there and wait for the doors to open..like it would someone recognize our presence. Needless to say, I'm not that big a fan of FedEx field right now). So we get up to our seats and anytime someone in a wheelchair needed to move, like to get food or go to the restroom, every single person in a wheelchair had to move out and we'd have to rearrange ourselves. Tell me what's accessible about that. 

I was so mad and fired up....I was ready to yell at someone. I usually bite my tongue and Dusty is always telling me to stand up for myself. Well, I was ready to do it right there, but he told me no, haha. In his words "now is not the time to finally start listening to me." I can't blame him, we didn't want to miss any of the game (not that it was that great of a game anyways, considering that they lost, which was just another thing that helped make it one of the worst days we'd had in awhile.) instead, I spent the whole first quarter sulking. Then, when I got home, I called FedEx and told them how unacceptable things were. It took some back and forth, but I now have a girl's personal cell phone number that I can use if anything goes wrong again, and I have six field passes to the Giants game on New Year's Day. They said I opened their eyes to a problem they have with accessibility and they are going to work on it now. See, it pays to be an advocate. If I don't stand up for myself or point these things out, then who will? How many other people have had the same problems or will in the future if nothing is done?