My friend needs to use his blind spot

I’m grateful that my marginally disabled friend occasionally gives me needed car rides, but I feel I would appreciate him even more if it didn’t bother me so much when I watch him repeat specific parking patterns in the reserved handicapped spots.

When he first tried to obtain a permit for these, his physician wouldn’t sign for a placard and advised him that walking more would help immensely. He doctor shopped to secure one, not telling the other physicians what the first advised. Perhaps my friend exaggerated his difficulty, trying to gain quick empathy, because I see this too when he aims to park in reserved spots, with regular ones equally available mere steps away. 

It’s as if he wants to identity with being disabled. I sometimes ask him, what about if someone with a more challenging disability direly needs the spot he’s just snagged? Someone blind who’s experienced a horrific crash or a quadriplegic needing wide berth, (which those spots provide) for maneuvering wheelchairs? But my friend simply insists for him, that it’s “first come, first serve.” 

When I see his approach, it reminds me of the nine UCLA football players who counterfeited disability placards in 1999. This was a sad case of able-bodied men, who trained lifting weights and running miles, getting caught being parking cheats! My friend makes the argument that he needs the closest spot in the event of an icy pathway. Well, maybe so, but oddly those spots often are also the iciest, since they’re the closest ones to the building shade! 

I would hope for on snow days my friend would don proper shoes or use lightweight cleats. And call on me to guide him to the door. If my friend would consider more mindful consideration toward those with less ambulatory capabilities, it would be a nice turn of a walk for him to take.

Perhaps a specific woman reading this will look at it and say, “I would never want to behave like Him.” Not realizing that is actually her to whom I refer, but changed her gender for just this reason.