I’m sure you’ve witnessed this spectacle. You’re walking
from the far end of a parking lot on a cold day, shivering to the bone, feet
mucking through slush that splashes up the back of your calf. You see a car
pull into the space right in front of the business you’re headed for. That
space happens to have the well-known blue sign in front of it that most of us
know and recognize as a “HANDICAPPED” designation. You look at the license
plate on the car and see that it’s normal and think, “Huh, that’s not a handicap
plate.” The door to the car opens and a completely mobile person gets out and
you think, “Huh, that person doesn’t look handicapped.” And then you see
hanging from their rear view mirror one of those temporary handicapped tags
that you can get if you drive around an elderly handicapped parent, OR you
don’t and the person has nothing hanging from their rear view mirror.
Often times
the person who exits the car is overweight. I feel compelled to shout things
like, “Hey asshole, if you parked in a normal space at the other side of the
parking lot and walked like the rest of us, maybe you wouldn’t be so fat!” or
“Wow, when did they designate a lack of self control while eating at McDonald’s
an actual disability?” I’m not sure what angers me more - the fact that these
people are taking up the space that is reserved for the legitimately disabled
person who is trying to get around in a society that is not set up well for
their disadvantaged bodies, or the fact that these people hold the belief that
they are better than everyone else.
Where does
this sense of entitlement come from? I can safely say that my generation and
the generations that followed got it from parents saying, “You’re special.” Let
me let you in on a secret, friends of my age and younger, “YOU’RE NOT SPECIAL!”
For those older than I, I’m not so sure. I definitely get the sense that there
are some elderly people who think they’ve earned the right to be rude, and I
just don’t agree. Perhaps the people my mom’s age get it from the “I’m okay, you’re
okay,” hippy philosophy. The bottom line is if you want to follow that whole
socialist idea of everyone being created equal, no one DESERVES that
handicapped space. It is created to assist those at a physical disadvantage. I
don’t see entitlement as a disadvantage.
The ironic
thing is that often times those with physical handicaps are more likely to
tough it out and walk the extra distance, through the pain, through the
difficulty, to get where they’re going. With suffering comes acceptance and
gratitude. With entitlement comes thanklessness and emptiness. And it goes
without saying that when fat people feel empty they’re only going to get
fatter. (Also, see those people who go to the gym and drive around the parking
lot until they find the closest parking space so they don’t have to walk… )
We can’t
fix the entitled people. They can only fix themselves, and that would first
require that they see a problem with their behavior. And that’s not going to
happen. Rather than be angry about it, I offer you these thoughts of karmic
recourse.
I’d like to think that people get what’s coming to them,
even if it takes a while. So, while these jackasses take handicapped spaces
away from those in need, I’d like to think they’ll get the ugly nurse/doctor
when it’s time for a rectal examination. Or, alternatively, their morphine drip
machine will be the one with dead batteries. They will share the hospital room
with a dementia patient who does nothing but yell obscene profanities
throughout the night while watching the Home Shopping Network at full volume.
They will pay, my friends, they will pay.
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