Antonia Sinibaldi only wanted to celebrate her birthday.
She is 29, lives in New Jersey, and has used a wheelchair since she was 2, after a drunk driver crashed into the car she was riding in. She needs help eating, drinking, and breathing. On June 20, she went to celebrate her birthday with her family at Blu on the Hudson restaurant in Weehawken, New Jersey, and ordered the same dessert as her cousin: an apple tart. Only Antonia’s plate arrived with a phrase written in caramel sauce: “Happy birthday, wheelchair”.
She said her body started shaking as soon as she read it. The restaurant manager, instead of apologizing, offered free drinks. Days later, the establishment publicly explained that “wheelchair” was merely an internal note to identify her table, and that it should never have been written on the plate. Antonia did not accept the excuse: she wrote on social media that her wheelchair does not define her, and that she is already tired of people mentioning it out of habit, even on the day that is supposed to be hers alone.