“handicap parking spots used to be for people in a wheelchair”
I never heard that. My doctors insisted that I use handicap spaces for a couple of months after hip replacements. No wheelchair, but crutches and/or cane.
Also, Dad was told to use them when his heart began to fail to a dangerous level.
What annoys me are the fat people using ride-around shopping carts. And when it’s a fat FAMILY it’s super creepy.
I know a man I admire greatly, a retired Marine in his Seventies who was severely injured in combat, and if there is one man I know who deserves a handicap placard on his vehicle so he would have less distance to walk, it would be him.
But to my consternation, and total admiration for his bottomless stubbornness to not be seen as a “victim” of some sort, he will not get (or use) a placard. He even seems to park further away than he otherwise might, as if he is somehow doing battle with the ailment on a personal level and refuses to concede to this faceless, unseen adversary, but an adversary nonetheless.
I am certain his wife rolls her eyes at him for this refusal to be pigeonholed, but somewhere inside me, I understand it fully, and fully admire him for even that. He refuses to surrender.
I’m annoyed by the big fat people in carts, but then, they would never be able to shop without a cart. Nobody wants to be that big. And there are attendant physical problems, such as shortness of breath and severe joint problems, so I’m going to have mercy on them and give them a pass.