I Don't Understand Some People

I felt sorry for my client.  She came to the door in a wheelchair when I delivered the estimate.  She was in that same wheelchair when we showed up to do the job.  It was obvious she was having a hard time getting around.  To make matters worse her house was a split level home with several short sets of stairs.  That must have been rough.

We started the work and she talked to me about how difficult it was to get around and how they were putting the house on the market so that she could find a home with no stairs.  Seemed reasonable.  Then she got up and walked over to a window to show me a problem with one of the hand cranks that open the window.

She got up and walked over to the window.  From the wheelchair.  Did you catch that?

Her car was in the garage and it had the blue handicapped tag in the window.  Several times she sighed and complained about lack of mobility.  But later as I was working, she got up again, picked up a single crutch and went up two of the flights of stairs to be in her office.  Then she hopped around the office without a crutch to gather up some paperwork before she sat at her computer.

"What happened?" I asked, about her handicap.

"I rolled my ankle playing tennis.  I had surgery and they put a pin in my ankle."

Tennis?  A pin?  A single pin in the ankle?  Shit, I have a pin in my knee and two in my wrist and those weren't major surgeries at all.  Most of my friends have had operations of some sort or another with pins, plates, and perhaps random dinnerware inserted in their bodies.  No wheelchairs that I know of.

"I had to quit my job because there was too much walking?" 

I had to ask.  "What did you do?"

"I was an office manager."

I just about went off right there.  But I didn't.  I went back to work because talking to her wasn't making the work go any faster and laughing at her would've been a poor choice of actions.

Then the medical supply company arrived.  I shit you not.  They brought her an electric cart, like you see old people driving around the shopping center. 

So I asked, "Is the injury permanent?" 

"No, the doctor says I'll be in physical therapy next week.  I was supposed to start this week but I'm in too much pain."

"Did the doctor recommend the wheelchair?"  I had to know.

"No.  I decided to get the mobility aids on my own, but I made him give me the handicapped parking tag.  Can you believe for something this serious he wasn't going to prescribe a parking tag?  But I insisted."

Mobility Aids.  She had the nerve to say mobility aids. 

So, thank your lucky stars you're not in such terrible shape as my client, Ms. Mobility Aid.

 - rick, disbelieving.

Comments

[Cherise]

When I was a teenager I took care of a woman with MS. I remember driving around parking lots for a handicap/or wheelchair accessable space so I could get her and her wheel chair out of the van without dinging any cars. More often than not I would witness walking and reasonably healthy people getting out of their cars with the little blue tags, while I was parking in BFE.
Why would you WANT to be in a wheel chair? I would have crippled her other ankle. Sheesh.
It's good to have a blog from you. :)

[Jennifer aka SillyNut]

Yeah, that makes me sick.

Even when my mom had a handicap tag for her car, no one else EVER used it if she wasn't in the car with us. You just.... you........

Bitch.

[Sideon]

My mom has degenerative arthritis and diabetes and is 90% wheel-chair bound and refuses to use the handicap accessible parking because she thinks that there are those who have greater mobility challenges.

Your client is pathetic.

I admire your restraint, because I would have pushed her down the stairs and driven over her with her "mobility aid". I would then bitch-slap her doctor for authorizing a parking tag for the whiny, lazy wretch.

[a rose is a rose]

i believe i've mentioned this before (and i believe it was on your blog, but perhaps i'm wrong). anyway,our new building (work) has a huge parking lot all around the building. it's a complete circle. even if one parks at the outer reaches, it STILL isn't a long walk in. it really isn't. i have studied the people who park in the handicapped spaces at work (well elsewhere too). 90% of them are MORE able-bodied than me. not only that, i personally see about 1/2 of the 90% working out in the gym. full OUT in the gym. then there is the man who has ONE LEG. he does NOT wear a prosthetic either. he has ONE LEG and crutches. oh did i mention, HE DOES NOT USE A HANDICAPPED SPACE?

i swear it is a pet peeve of mine. i want to bitch-slap every person i see parking in a handicapped space that doesn't need to. i am foaming at the mouth now. NOT pretty at all

[Cele]

Some people are eternal victims - they make me sick, pissed off, and totally disgusted. Cheers to Sid's mom, the one legged man, and other's who refuse to be victims.

[circus watcher]

Hello CV Rick,

My DW has rheumatoid arthritis. At one point I had to cut her food for her, but she could eat on her own. This ladies handicapp is not her lack of mobility, it lies somewhere else.