I am not handicapped, but I do have a Motor Vehicle Handicapped tag hanging from my rear view mirror. It is not for me, but for a family member.
From childhood I learned all too well how much planning goes into choosing a restaurant, because of easy access; just how cold it is pushing a wheelchair up a handicapped ramp in the rain; how complicated and difficult stairs can be in snow or even after dark because they are hard to see.
And don’t even get me started on those prima donnas who think they can park in a handicapped space just because they are too special and too lazy to walk a few car lengths. I have embarrassed a few women in stiletto heels using a handicapped spot while they run to the ATM.
I know just how damn rude, or ignorant, employees at the movie theatre can be, refusing my request to use the side door that is in their view, but made my brother-in-law, hobbling with a walker, trudge all the way up to the main door, then the back down the entire length of the foyer, past the side door, then into the theatre. Yeah, I left from that side door, they won't have my business again.
We had nasty snow storm: I offered to jockey his car around, several times: to get it off the street, park it in the lot, or move to the other side of the street because of the plows. All offers were refused. I kept an eye out, made sure the stairs and walkways were cleared, sanded, etc. But people, we had 2-3 inches of snow, and lots of ice! We live on the ocean, lots of moisture, and lots of ice.
One of the tenants took it on himself to spend the afternoon chopping and shoveling the ice in the driveway. The parking lot has a rise and the bottom end is slightly rounded, a hump, we clear and salt it, but snow melts, forms ice and that’s it. Be careful.
I looked down and there is the tenant, with crutches walking around this lot, chatting up the dude who is shoveling. He was out there, strolling up and down a good 30 minutes.
I spotted a plow working the building next door, ran down and asked if he could clear the mountain of snow at the end of our parking lot, so the garbage truck could get into our lot and empty the dumpster. (Overflowing dumpsters are ugly sights indeed.)
As his car was already idling alongside that mountain of snow that the plow was heading for, I asked the tenant to please move his car off the street and into the lot.
Wow! Nasty, angry and vulgar!
How dare I ask him: He ONLY came down here to make sure his car started! And now I want him to walk through all this ice? And now he is sick. He has the flu!
Duh? You walked down two flights of stairs, down the sidewalk, over the ice, through clumps of snow and through the slush and ice in the street, just to start your car. You have been strolling around a parking lot full of ice. You have been outside 30 minutes and JUST NOW you have the FLU?!
I pointed out the plow heading our way. I offered to move his car for him.
More @#$@#%@#% drama. He now has a fever.
He agreed to move his car, but as he is walking down the parking lot, loudly protesting his handicap, his illness, the ice, and while my back was turned, he fell.
As I rushed to help, I thought it was odd that I didn’t hear a cry of, “OMG!” or even hear a thump. As I walked alongside him to the sidewalk, I heard all about his illness and, “Don’t stand too close to me, I don’t want you to catch what I have.”
I wasn’t worried.
When we reached the sidewalk a neighbor (whom he complains about in great detail) came down with her new dog. He stopped to chat. He wasn’t worried about his flu, his contagious illness, nor was he in a desperate hurry to get upstairs.
He moved. Yaaay.
Yeah.
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