From Deseret News archives:
Handicapped parking slots are not a perk of pain
He's given up activities he's long enjoyed, parked forever his beloved motorcycle.
But he looks OK to the man behind him in the parking lot, so when he pulls into the handicapped stall, puts his placard on the rearview mirror and climbs out, that fellow guns his motor, swerves slightly toward him, as if to see if it will make him jump, and offers a loud, rude remark.
The swerve only complicates what happens later, when after too many steps in this needed trip to the store, the man with post-polio drags himself back out to his car. Only by following him through the store would the expert wordsmith see the many pauses for rest, the leaning on the pole by the cash register, the precarious balance as he lets his shopping cart help support him.
He's getting used to the mean glares and snotty remarks he sometimes gets when he parks in the handicapped stall. He'll probably never get used to the fact that his legs are unreliable.
Only by living in his skin would the judgmental fellow know that pain dogs every step. And that's not going to happen. "I guess I told him," he's probably congratulated himself for his ugly little diatribe.
The handicapped placard remains in the glove box most of the time, unused.
Besides choosing them for fashion, the long pants are also about privacy. She may not want to answer questions from people she doesn't know who somehow feel entitled to ask her to relive, for their education, why her leg was removed. Sharing is something she should be able to decide for herself.
Those who yell at her family don't stick around long enough to see the soreness or exhaustion at the end of even a moderate shopping trip. They don't feel how she sometimes struggles.
She got that cardboard insert that allows her to park in a handicapped stall the hard way: She has a disability that qualifies her. But it's too emotionally exhausting to argue with people who glance over and decide her family's taking advantage somehow. So she struggles when she's tired.
Comments
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94
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