ofREH

Whats wrong with this picture?

So.
On a recent trip to California, at a Starbucks, I happened across a scene that very nearly, for me, could be a marquee for the the States’ ills. As goes California…?
Indeed. The ills of a Nation. Literally.
The rule of the minority. As recently pointed out to me, a form of tyranny.

Woe is me. Not my fault. Mommy and Daddy (can I have my allowance now?) made me, in mind and deed, what I am. ACOA. ADHD. PTSD. Placard please.

Of course the scene I spied that day, and which I recount, is hugely politically incorrect. The handicapped are off limits.
If it were only so.

One in five, that’s the ratio. Handicapped to fully functional.
Of three available parking spaces (three total, mind you). Two, are handicapped.

Being of the larger fraction, immensely fortunate, I should be grateful to be allowed to park across the street, just in case even one of those two spots are used. Right? The reasonable, compassionate thing to do. I should be thrilled to have to install a handicap restroom and ramp, at huge cost, in my new business. Even though my restrooms aren’t public. I should be beside myself with glee to be allowed to give way in some manner or tax to the placarded, to those who won’t give way to the Double cheeseburger. I should be in line to purchase, for them, their very own motorized body hauler. Just like the commercials say… “No cost to you. We’ve got this, have a seat…forever!!”

I miss stigmas.
A hand out…not likely. What’s a little hunger looking at welfare?
Hunger sated, dignity compromised.
Your teen daughter is pregnant…avert the eyes and hope the loss of an election might be enough to warn her peers of severe consequences.
The sins of the…
~sigh~ The good ol’ days.

It’s said the most traumatic experience is very probably emerging from the womb. You stayed on the tit for years afterward but you eventually got off it…right? You finally quit your bawling and got on with it. What happened? What made you want to crawl back up into fetal and start sucking your thumb again?

Someone told you no? In a harsh and firm voice? Some other kid score more goals than you? Or, more likely, I think, someone told you not to bother. They would take care of you, your being damaged and all. The War, you know.
You didn’t think to wonder at the cost? That you would then be at their mercies, like a domesticated pet, unable, by lack of need, to care for yourself?
My God, look at you. Have you no shame?

Quit your whining for one minute and consider your proud heritage. How faced with returning from battlefields of horror, having seen and done things that should have never been asked of them, they got on with it. Not JUST got on with it, but made the greatest Nation on Earth.
Sucked it up. For you.
What have you done?
You got on the pipe. You need medical marijuana to cope. You post at off-ramps begging for scraps. You attend “sessions.”
Do you really believe your experience that unique? That their dreams or anxiety, less?
Unique, certainly, that you only think to your next bowl.
They…thought of you.
Oh yes, they drank. They beat their wives, their children.
Not the majority though.
The majority of them, after fitful nights, woke drenched in sweat, struggled for purpose, rose, dressed all by themselves, braced, and walked out the door into a World of uncertainty. Of anxiety and fear. But a different fear. A fear of not measuring up, of letting those counting on them down. They put their heads down and squared their shoulders and got on with it.
You are the result of that sacrifice and labour.
Lucky us.

Wanting better for us than they had themselves. They blew it. They forgot to give us the “no free lunch” spiel. In their haste to provide, to build, they didn’t foresee the fine Ivy League schools, they proudly sent us off to, changing the curriculum from “Enter to Grow in Wisdom” to “Someones comin up short cuz I’m gettin mine.”
Instead, handing off their chains of dry cleaners, their car dealerships, hardware stores and insurance companies to us. We, drooling at the mouth to get our ungrateful, undeserving, grubby little fingers on them so that we could sell them, break them up. Half centuries of dedication and sacrifice, reduced to a few years backpacking in Europe, a new BMW, and a paper thin condo.
Because we’re entitled.

Then…when we’d lost it.
After countless rehabs, couch surfing, moving back home at thirty four, we have the gall, the cheek, the absolute nerve…to blame them.
Mom was a drunk. Daddy didn’t read me bedtime stories.
We would attend Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings, were it not for our Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. What choice did we have?
Panty waste. We’ve got that coming.

You are disabled. Your placard is in the mail.
Pitiful looks, over easy, just how you like them.