Parking Lot Laziness.

When you see a "Handicapped" parking space, it is typically identified by a universally recognizable symbol: a person in a wheelchair. We all know it, we recognize it instantly, and we understand its implications. So you would think.

While I was waiting for my wife to come out of the grocery store yesterday, I watched a woman in her late thirties or early forties and what I assume were her two daughters (or her daughter and a friend; it's inconsequential) walk to their massive Dodge pick-up truck which was parked in a handicapped spot, load their groceries, and leave. I also noticed a handicapped parking pass hanging from the rearview mirror. While I'm no physician, it seemed to me that they were in fine health, and any handicap they were suffering from might be mental in nature (I reference one of the younger girls wearing a "Don't Be Jealous" novelty tee-shirt and fuzzy slippers...are you fucking kidding me?).

How, I wonder, did they come across this parking pass which gives them access to a spot that, in my estimation, seems to be reserved for people who cannot walk? The universal symbol for handicapped clearly indicates that a prerequisite for parking in one of these set aside spots is that your legs simply do not function. If you can walk, I humbly suggest that you should walk. Often. Especially if you're out of shape. I have noticed in many instances people with handicapped parking passes are morbidly obese, and I don't think society is doing them any favors by letting them out close to the door. On the contrary, I think they should have to park at the opposite end of the parking lot, so as to maximize their ambulatory activity. Maybe if they did this more often, my health insurance premiums would go down.

As I mentioned previously, I am not a physician. I am sure there are certain circulatory issues, heart diseases, and other ailments that warrant offering a handicapped parking permit to someone who can walk. I simply suggest that there are people who may be abusing this charitable and humane social act, and the thought sickens me to a point I simply cannot articulate. Here in Ohio, if you are caught driving while "intoxicated," you have to drive with a special license plate that indicates this as a matter of public shaming. I propose a task force to investigate "parking while not handicapped" fraud, and sentence those people to hang a tag from their rear view mirror of a person not in a wheelchair, but a recliner, and designate "Lazy Ass" parking as far away from the door to any establishment with a parking lot.

Or maybe I've just got a "case of the Mondays."