zesty antarctic reckoning

The photo above contains a note that reads “Shame on you, A Real Handicapped Person.”

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I get a lot of notes like this under my wiper blades. Surprisingly many are on floral paper. Mostly it happens around the holidays, because that is when the very full parking forces me to take the disabled spaces. I also get angry shouts and jeers from people, especially if I am sitting in my car for any length of time (which sometimes I have to do until my back injury lets up enough that I am capable of walking again). Today’s came because my daughter was in desperate need of bras, and so I ventured out despite the fact that I have a lot of anxiety and holiday crowds are The Worst. 

I am not obviously disabled. I am middle aged, and received my placard when I was in my twenties. I don’t ride around in a wheelchair, or carry a cane (though I am supposed to have a cane in case I collapse). I have a spinal cord injury in my lower back that allows me to walk short distances in mostly alright fashion, though I am never free of pain. At the same time, I carry with me the loaded gun that one or both of my legs will “go out” on me (i.e.- unpredictable flaccid paralysis depending on how my frayed nerves/misshapen bones/busted discs decide to line up on any given stride).

I once had an older woman yell at me that “being fat” is not a disability (I’m not even that overweight). I yelled back that being disabled got me fat. She demanded to know “what was wrong with me.” There’s nothing wrong with me.

I should not have to explain my qualifications for parking in a disabled space. You know what qualifies me to do that? My fucking placard. You know how I got that? BY BEING DISABLED. It’s not like the doctor prescribed it to me because I walked in, batted my lashes, and asked super nice like. They don’t hand out placards to people for cases of chronic cuteness. And you know what it means when it’s a blue placard and not a red one? It’s fucking PERMANENT. 

Another thing that makes notes like this not make sense: I can legally park in a disabled person’s space in order to pick up or drop off a disabled person. This means that for all these people know, I am walking into whatever location it is to get my elderly crippled grandmother with chronic breathing problems back to the vehicle to go home. 

Shame on passive aggressive notes and verbally abusive behavior, an also disabled person.