Woman Comes Out Of Grocery Store To Find Insensitive Note On Her Car All Because She Walked Inside With Ease
Minding your own business couldn't be easier, but nobody ever seems to do it...
Myroslava Malovana / Shutterstock, Daniel Berman / Getty via CanvaPro & Reddit It's one of the best pieces of advice anyone could ever follow — you never know what people's circumstances are, so it's usually best to mind your business! Of course, all too many people simply can't help themselves, and as a woman on Reddit recently experienced, it can result in some pretty cringe-worthy misunderstandings.
We've all seen someone help themselves to a disabled parking spot a time or two, simply because the parking lot's full and they're a bit entitled. Many of us have even thought of doing it ourselves if we're honest. But most of us just drive on and go about our day. That is not what happened to an Australian Redditor.
A woman found a nasty note on her car after parking in a disabled parking spot.
Photo credit: u/capnducki / Reddit
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The note accused the woman and her mother of not being 'truly disabled' because of her invisible disabilities.
The incident happened at the Gungahlin shopping center in Canberra, Australia, where the Redditor and her mother live. After doing their shopping, she and her mother came out to the parking lot to find a nasty note left on her mother's car.
"Hi, are you [truly] disabled?" the note read. "You both walked from your car like athletes," the presumptuous note went on to say. "Please follow the rules."
Of course, seeing two women appearing to be able-bodied walking into a store with no problems might make many of us suspicious. But it takes a special level of nosiness to actually go to the lengths to leave a scolding note on someone's car about something that ultimately isn't your business, and in this case, it was a particularly bad idea because it turned out the note's author didn't have any idea what they were talking about.
The woman's mother actually has a debilitating condition, the symptoms of which are invisible.
There are scores of invisible disabilities that don't involve the functions of people's limbs — like many mental health conditions, for starters. But many physical disabilities are invisible disabilities too, and as the video below reveals, even the ones that are visible aren't necessarily visible while parking a car.
In the case of the Redditor's mother, it turns out she suffers from a genetic condition called polycystic disease, which impacts a person's liver and kidneys and makes them susceptible to cysts.
The disorder can cause a range of symptoms, from high blood pressure to the deadly loss of liver and kidney function. It can also cause chronic pain — the type that can make things like, say, walking through a parking lot an ordeal. Which is why the Redditor's mother has a disabled parking permit.
Photo credit: u/capnducki / Reddit
But for most polycystic disease patients, the condition is totally invisible, and the Redditor's mother is one of them. "My mother is disabled, her disability isn't visible," she went on to write in her post. "She was legally given a disability parking permit because she is DISABLED! What a moron."
Others reported facing similar incidents because of their own invisible disabilities.
Sadly, the Redditor's mother is emphatically not alone in this experience. Several people on Reddit reported having gotten into altercations about their disability status too.
"I have arthritis in my spine and elsewhere - disabling, yet completely invisible," another Reddit user wrote. "Have had old women yell at me for parking in the disabled spots, despite having a permit. Told that I’m 'not allowed to park there' because I’m 'not disabled'. One lady threatened to call the police."
"I don’t understand it at all," the person went on to say. "Like if someone has a disability permit, and they’re parking in a disability spot… mind your business??"
Others urged the Redditor not to take the incident to heart, and that it was the work of just one "lonely coward." But another disabled person revealed that unfortunately, that's not true—acts of ableism are more like a daily occurrence.
"I wish it were just a 'lonely coward,'" the person wrote, "but most of us cop some kind of ableism every trip out. Parking spaces, wheelchairs, no access, being told there is access where there isn't, slurs, unsolicited advice, staring/snide remarks, you name it."
Worse still, disabled people are the victims of crime far more often than abled people—nearly four times as often, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. And reports of hate crimes against the disabled have been on a steady uptick since 2015 as well.
We're all prone to making snap judgments of course, and we all get the wrong end of the stick now and then. But disabled people have enough problems without having to deal with the rest of us policing their necessary accommodations. Especially since there's already an entity tasked with that job—the authorities who issue disabled parking permits in the first place. Minding your own business is free, as the saying goes!
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.