I had the misfortune of meeting a very ignorant and self-righteous lady in the parking lot of a grocery store a few days ago. Luckily for me she had the name of a small business on her car, so I’m writing this blog entry and then I’ll be posting it on her business’s Facebook page. The reach of social media 
It took around 3 weeks for me to receive a parking permit that allows me to park in handicapped parking spots if I need to do so. In the 2 weeks that I’ve had the permit, I think I’ve only used it 3 times, however. When there are other spots for me to park in, I use them. When I feel good on a particular day and I can walk extra distances without hurting my joints, I don’t park in these spots. I have had times when I’ve needed the spot but there hasn’t been one available, so I know what it’s like to have one taken unnecessarily. I don’t abuse the fact that I have a permit, and I hope others do the same.
After an appointment with my rheumatologist, I decided to go to Whole Foods on my way home. Walking a lot inflames my joints, something I have been instructed to avoid doing. The parking lot was very full, so I took the opportunity to use my parking permit which my doctor obviously decided I need. It was either that or walk probably 100 meters, something I didn’t want to do considering I’d already had to do a fair amount of walking that day.
Cue the ignorant lady that I am writing this blog entry for. Her car was parked right beside mine and as she was getting into it she said to me, “Next time leave that spot for someone that needs it.”
Wow.
That instantly set me off. I asked her if she was serious and if she could see everything that was going on in my body. I can’t believe she actually had the nerve to literally harass me in the parking lot for something I had every right to be doing.
She said to me, “You look perfectly healthy.” I told her to Google lupus and arthritis. She told me that she knows someone that has lupus and knows all about it. This is complete bullshit because she clearly knows nothing about it. People with lupus usually look perfectly fine but they are still in terrible pain. People with lupus need to avoid aggravating their joints so that they don’t make things worse for themselves. If she actually knew someone with lupus, she would know these things. So yeah, I still recommend that she Googles it so that she can spare the next person she wants to spout her prejudiced nonsense to.
She said that she knows of people that borrow people’s cars so that they can use the parking permit. Even if people do things like this, it doesn’t give her the right to harass people in parking lots. Not to mention that harassing people in parking lots does nothing to solve this problem. Does she actually think that telling someone not to do it is going to prevent them from doing it? People that do selfish things like that aren’t going to care what she thinks. So it accomplishes nothing when she speaks to someone abusing it, and it annoys someone when she speaks to someone legit. Good plan, lady. Well played.
After being berated for a couple minutes, she said another ridiculous thing to me: “I said that to protect people like you.” Another bullshit statement that she said to make herself to feel better for opening her ignorant mouth. I’ve already said why it does nothing to help people like me. Not to mention there are better ways to go about improving the enforcement of parking permits than harassing sick people.
Having run a business myself in the past, I am not foolish enough to write the name of this lady’s business for the public to read since I know that no publicity is bad publicity. I will say, however, that I am shocked she can be in business in the first place given her obvious lack of people skills. And also her inability to apologize. “I’m sorry to hear you have lupus” is not an apology.
To the lady for whom this entry was written for: Your self-righteousness is incredibly insufferable. Don’t be so prejudiced. Don’t be so quick to judge people by their appearances. Both your business and personal life would probably improve if you took this advice. The lives of everyone around you would improve, too.
If you are so concerned with taking up spots that are close to the entrance of a store because other people need them, perhaps you could do us all a service and park farther away next time. You seemed to walk perfectly fine. And given the nature of your business, you are probably in fine shape. But I am sure you will not do this since you are a likely a giant hypocrite. Oh I’m sorry, did I just assume something about you? I’m certainly more on the mark than you were in the parking lot that day, that much I know.
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