As I said in my last post, I went to my first local MDA event yesterday. It was in many ways a bizarre event for me personally, though all in all not a bad experience by a long ways. It was a fundraiser for the local MDA called "Locked Up" where volunteers are put in a mock jail and people take pictures of them, and people coming through the event pledge money to "bail them out" at whatever level the volunteer decides to set their bail. It was a clever idea, and made for cute pictures and what seemed to be a good time for the volunteers. The volunteers also seem to be treated very well, getting free lunch and lots of other swag for their troubles. There was an amazing amount of volunteers and people attending such a local event. It must've taken up almost half of the restaurant. My PCA and I were treated in a friendly manner, and some of the people even assumed that I was a volunteer and not a "client". It probably helped that my PCA that day was a friendly, outgoing person as I tend to not be in crowds of people, but I actually ended up talking to a mother of a 10-year-old with Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. She thought that I was much younger than I was (I admittedly have a baby face) and was shocked when I told her that I was married, but I didn't feel disrespected or dehumanized in any way.