A Dog In That Fight

Oct 21, 2010

I am very glad I had my surgery, and that it went as well as it did -- i.e., little drama, few delays, and only a hoop or two to jump through. 

I only wish I had had it sooner, so that my knees would have lasted a little longer, and I wouldn't be waiting for a call from the surgery coordinator for the knee replacement.  Oh, well; if wishes were horses, etc.

The point of this writing, though, is my newly acquired awareness of the true meaning of the blue placard and blue curbs and handicapped stalls, thanks to the aforementioned knees. 

Now, I am applying for a temporary placard -- six months -- because in that time I will have one knee replaced and therapy.  They will wait a little longer, then I will apply for another placard, get the other knee replaced, etc., and not have to use a placard. 

However, I don't have the placard yet, and I park where I usually do at work, and I hike in, and even with the cane, my knees hurt like damn all.  I would love to use the handicapped restroom in the ladies, because it is the only toilet in this building that is of  height easy to the knees (the others don't even come up to the knees!), but I was all but knocked flat by a slim young thing racing to the handicapped stall yesterday, and more often than not it is occupied by those who wish true privacy.  I can understand that -- no one is truly comfortable in a public restroom -- BUT!

Well.  I stumped into the regular restroom, practically pulling myself up by the cane hanging on the back of the stall, because the toilet was so low I couldn't push myself up, easily.  (No handrails, either.)  I've had to do that every day this week.  I'm trying hard to be easy-going about this, because in six months it will be half over and I won't need the help, but it is hard cheese. 

I took my mother to her Coumadin clinic a few weeks ago.  I had her placard (she is on a walker, with breathing problems), and got her out of the car, her walker settled, her oxygen tank in the little basket, and was nearly flattened by a woman in an Escalade backing into the handicapped space next to us, oblivious to an open door and an elderly woman.  She then glared at me while I finished arranging Mom, closed the doors, and moved both of us out of range while she finished parking her behemoth and raced across the walkway. 

When we got back, the Escalade was still there, and I noticed two things.  One, there were no handicapped plates, and two, there was no placard.  I made my way to the parking exit, paid my $5, and reported the car. 

Yup.  I'll do it.  If I park without a placard, I'd expect someone to do it to me, too. 

If it had been a normal parking space, and the woman had pulled that, I might have let it go.  Well, I might have dinged her door; she fixed it so I had to back out to let my mother get into the car.  (Oh, hell.  I'd have keyed it.) 

Now that I know what those few extra feet mean, however, or those few extra inches or a handrail in a stall, I'm hypersensitive.  I don't use the handicapped restroom unless my buckling left knee is really giving me grief, and even the cane doesn't help.  I will only use the placard when absolutely necessary; I find that when I get someplace in good time, I often have my pick of parking spots.  I know this is nitpicking, and there will be a time when I will be parking dead center in front of the building, but at this time there are those who are in far worse shape, who have the placard, and they will be accommodated.  I can wait. 

And I will be ever vigilant.  Look out, parking scofflaws and restroom piggies, eagle-eye D is on the job, and I am draconian in my outlook and methods.  So, if you are in Southern California, and you see a gray-haired woman with a black cane stumping along and peering intently into the windows and license plate frames of cars in blue spaces, you know you are seeing me pursuing my new hobby.  At this moment, I won't be in the blue spot, either.  I'll have had to park about a block away!

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