(Remember the scrapbooking giveaway folks - see below)
Ok, so I am only 52 and this guy looked about 179, but so what? Age is no indicator of infirmity. Right?
I arrive at the supermarket car park with my disabled Parking sticker prominently displayed. I am thrilled to find that there is one last spot left right in front of the entrance to the shopping centre for me. I stop and allow an oncoming car to move past me so I can swing out a bit and park. I notice another car, a white staton wagon, in the aisle directly across and immediately assume he is waiting for me to park -kind soul.
"Are you disabled?" he asks. "Why as a matter of fact I am" I reply cheerfully without any hesitation, and in my mind I record a milestone achieved - self-acknowledgement at last. The gentleman looks from side to side and then says "These spots are for people who are disabled and have a parking sticker." He said it with such forcefulness that I paused but did not understand.
Instead I am impressed and I reply that it is good he is so vigilant for us because so many people don't care and I proceed to point out my blue 'special' sticker on the windscreen. By this time I have extricated myself from the car and am facing him directly. He hurrrumphfs and moves back to his car.
At that point lightning strikes as I notice his also elderly wife in the passenger seat and HIS blue sticker on the dashboard. I call out immediately and apologise as I hadn't realised he was waiting for the spot I took and if he looked behind him there was another spot right where he stood and would only have added another 5 metres distance to his walk to the entrance. I silently calculated that in approaching me and returning to his car he had already covered that distance quite capably - then I berated myself thinking that it might have been his wife who was frail and not himself. He waves me off and I try again - this time I offer to move MY car into the empty regular parking space so he could have my disabled car space. He grunts and gets in the car and drives off. Why he did not just back up 3 metres and park is beyond me.
Anyway, parking my naivete in the car with my sticker I head off into the shops. As I start meandering around the supermarket, careful to only travel as far as is absolutely necessary so as to save my already aching joints, I wonder about the man and his wife. Did they just go home? Why would they do that? Should I have insisted on them having my spot? Am I a total bitch?
I turn the corner from the fruit section into the next aisle and right there in front of me is the man and his wife. I sooooooo want to apologise again but am arrested immediately by the most unexpected sight - when it finally registered in my head. His wife, who was about 4' 2", looked like a ghost and must have been 178 years old was pushing the big shopping trolley and Mr Grumpy Bum, who had jumped out of his car and walked over to berate me, was pushing a walking frame !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Suddenly all my guilt left me. I could not believe my eyes. I moved off, seething.
I completed my shopping and was at the checkout waiting. My legs were screaming with pain, I worried I would fall. I still had to get through checkout, unload the trolley and push it to the trolley bays before I could take the weight off. Meanwhile Mr Grumpy Bum and his wife had filled the trolley up to capacity and were using the self-service checkout. Walker to one side he had gone to get a second trolley so they could put the checked items in. When they finished he took the spare trolley back to the bays, returned and took hold of the walker to follow his wife out to the car.
My blood was boiling. My legs were shaking but I bit my tongue.
Eventually I was finished and sat in the car waiting for my legs to stop shaking so I could drive. Slowly, slowly I backed out of the car space and drove around to the back of the supermarket to go home. As I came round the corner I saw Mrs Grumpy Bum unloading the shopping into the back of the white car. Mr Grumpy Bum was nowhere to be seen. I gave way to a vehicle and proceeded on my way. Not 10 metres down I saw him - coming back from the big fruit market across the street with a loaded bag in each arm - no walker in sight.
Well..... what do you think I did?
