NO PARKING! Please

OK, this is serious. 

The spaces in handicap parking areas that are marked with diagonal yellow lines are NOT for parking.  I don't care if you have a handicap hang tag.  I don't care if you have a handicap plate.  I don't care if you are eleven months pregnant and your water just broke.  DON'T PARK THERE! 

There is no punch line. 

My uncle was stricken with polio when he was in high school.  This athlete now could not use his hands.  He could not walk.  He could move his legs a little and he had the use of his head and neck muscles.  His bed kept his body breathing while he was asleep. It rocked him up and down, head to feet and back to head.  He had an electric wheelchair that was equipped with switches at his knees.  In his chair he could move as far as there were no latched doors, no steps, no curbs. 

 He went to college and got his degree, lived in his own place and had an assistant who, among other things, drove his lift equipped van.  This is how I know what those yellow striped spaces are for.  What good is it to park in a designated space when there is no room to open the door and put out the lift? 

Just another set of stairs. 

Just another latched door. 

New! Improved! Bah!

It's ridiculous to be bothered by so small a detail.  Don't tell me.  I know, and I'm grumpy, anyway. 

It destroys the even flow of a long established routine. 

It leaves sharp edges that cut into my nice clean silicone spatula. 

It makes it nearly impossible to get every last drop, rankling my frugal soul. 

It makes it harder to clean up for our towns dainty recyclers. 

It's the darn 'pop top' redesign of

soup concentrate cans.

 

Grr. 

 I don't need improvements that make something so simple take longer! 

Bah! 

Phooey! 

Humbug!

Now, I feel bet...

No, I don't!

RATS

DON'T TELL ME!

I'd like to know what is about me that inspires these confidences.  (OK, maybe I wouldn't really like to know.)  It happened again, and I don't understand it. 

I am unabashedly Christian.  I don't wear a button saying, "Ask me how not to GO TO HELL." or pass out tracts at social functions, but if you are around me very long it becomes obvious that I'm relying on Jesus' sacrifice to get me to heaven.  It also becomes obvious that I ain't makin' it on my own!  So, why has this happened to me at least twice?

A Christian friend has told me with smiles and great satisfaction how they stole something.  How am I supposed to react?  What do they want from me, a pat on the back.  Better not turn your back for that pat, you'll be surprised where it lands!  

The only thing I can think of is that each person thought that they weren't "really" stealing.  One took something from our workplace.  The other from the donated items outside a charity store. 

Why did they tell me?  I'm not qualified to give absolution!  Was I supposed to say, "Oh, you clever thing."  Did they want me to say, "You put that back, and say you are sorry!"  I don't know.   I don't get it.

I get confessing a weakness in warning, to ask for support or as a friendship deepening thing-gummy.   But this, I don't get and it makes me grumpy that I don't get it.  (Or should that be, that I do get it?)

So, do me a favor, wouldja?  If you get stinkin' drunk and think it's a joke; if you act like a jerk to get what you want and think it's smart, please

DON'T TELL ME!