Handicapped.

“I’m going to give you something to cry about.” I can’t count the number of times that I heard this statement being shrieked in the middle of a public venue when I was a kid. I have to admit that I don’t recall my mother ever uttering that phrase, she was too busy screaming at the top of her lungs that she was going to scream, but I remember seeing kids in the market or whatever crying and their mother threatening to give them something to cry about. I didn’t ever really feel particularly bad for the kid as I figured he must be some sort of monster if his mother was screaming that instead of just screaming. I couldn’t really relate.

But as an adult I can relate to that sort of hostility that was displayed by the screaming parent. I feel a similar sentiment towards people that needlessly have a handicapped decal hanging from their rearview mirror.

I know quite a few people that actually need these handicapped designations on their vehicle; they have a genuine reason to need to use one of the spaces near the front door, for example, they have an artifical leg or the fact that the wheelchair ramp is very hard to open when you’re wedged between an empty shopping cart corral and a lightpost. But if appearances mean anything, the handicapped sticker/badge has become a status symbol in these parts, where the only handicap exhibited by the driver is:

1. They completely lack parking skills
2. They’re lazy
3. They have an unfortunate sense of entitlement (the American way!)
4. All of the above

This afternoon I saw a bright blue, 1980s vintage, unnecessarily big pickup truck zoom into the handicapped spot in front of the Dollar Tree at an unusually high rate of speed. The driver, a woman, parked at a 30 degree diagonal to the lines denoting the space. Because of this, a state owned wheelchair capable van had to park further down the lot next to the aforementioned cart corral. The big truck had a handicapped sticker dangling from the mirror; I noticed then when the woman RAN from the truck to the front door of the store.

Unfortunate.

Once the wheelchair van was unloaded of it’s two passengers, both in wheelchairs, the driver calmly walked behind them as the folks in the wheelchair wheeled themselves to the same store.

The fault of this idiocy really does belong to the town halls or whatever layer of red tape is responsible for giving out these handicapped badges that hang from the mirror. “Give me a box of donuts, Gertrude, and I’ll give you a handicapped sticker so you can park closer to the donut shop.”

You wouldn’t ever see one of these people spring for the paperwork necessary to get an actual DMV-issued handicapped designated license plate. Too much work and effort required with the need to prove that you’re indeed handicapped.

It would cut into their entitlement time.