This is a phenomenon which bothers me more than it should, but what is up with people who are neither paraplegic nor elderly trundling about in electric wheelchairs? I’m not talking about a conveyance of necessity, but the making of the world an extension of one’s living room. A barcalounger with a motor, commandeering the sidewalk and the aisles at Costco, so an entirely ambulatory person can be spared the injustice of standing on his own feet. These chairs are not cheap, yet the state gives them out like communion wafers to those willing to fill out the paperwork. Or more predictably, who hire an advocate to file claims on their behalf. Yes, some of these people might be fat, but by no means so obese they need to be extracted from their bedroom by a fire crew with the jaws of life. They can walk. They choose not to. They park in the handicap spot at Target and berate the management for only providing three motorized shopping carts per store, when there are clearly four marked handicap spots. They threaten neighbors with litigation because of uneven sidewalks, then get out of their chairs and carry them over the broken pavement. When the battery expires during an outing, they phone their children and have them push them home in flip-flops. Meanwhile, there are amputee combat veterans in this city competing in triathlons on artificial limbs, without complaint. The vets know once you sit down, you don’t get back up. What does it mean to sit down when you’re 40? Or 30? What does it mean when an entire sub-segment of the public decides to sit down, literally or figuratively. and the state underwrites this behavior with subsidy? Do people really think America can pay its bills by making disability more profitable than work? Tell me how this movie ends.
