Machete License

I’m feeling particularly lazy today. A kind of Garfield lazy, I think. It’s Monday, and even though the day is already over, I still feel like I’m in a box, with the covers over my head, avoiding everything.

I guess that’s because I’m so fucking sick of Christmas, it’s ridiculous. I don’t get excited for it until, maybe, the 23rd. Before that all the rigmarole that everyone is going through just pisses me off to no end. Not so much when it’s those close to me, but when it’s these idiots on the streets or in the stores losing their minds over everything… I start to wish I carried around a machete.

I mean really… this time of year, there should really be a license you can get or something. The Machete license. Pass the machete test, and you get up to 10 machete swings, per week, with total impunity. I’d probably save mine up for any trip to the Dollar Store, but I’m sure I’d spend a few here and there throughout the week. Hack off some guy’s little finger because he’s talking on his cell phone while paying for groceries at the checkout. Take a big chunk out of the shoulder of some useless father who’s letting his 5 year old kid run up and down the aisles at breakneck speed. Get out of the car at a busy intersection and go after the first impatient son of a bitch that honks their horn…

Yeah, I need a machete. My folks were telling me a story today at lunch, and I think the person involved should count themselves damned lucky that the 10 Machete Swing License isn’t available, and that I wasn’t there with one.

If you haven’t seen them before, some local companies have taken to adding “Maternity Parking” spaces in their lots. They’re just next to the Handicap spots, and they’re courtesy of the company for pregnant women, or parents of newborn children.

So on this occasion, apparently all of the Handicap spaces were full, because as already mentioned, it’s almost Christmas. This old guy, handicap sticker and all goes to the store and can’t park in any of the blue spots, so he parked in the Maternity spot, since it was open, and next closest, and he probably would have fallen in half had he tried to walk from the back of the parking lot.

He comes out of the store with his wife, gets to his car–and this is about when my parents pull into the lot–and starts getting screeched at by a pregnant woman, here into referred to as “Nature’s Miracle”, for parking there with his handicap plates and handicap tag hanging in the window. “Don’t you realize those spots aren’t for you? Blah blah, Call the cops, blah blah, I’m pregnant, blah blah, etc.”

Dear Nature’s Miracle, here’s a news flash for you:

Doo Dee Doo Dee Do, Doo Dee Doo Dee Do. Doo Dee Doo Dee Do, Doo Dee Doo Dee Do.

Those spaces? They’re a courtesy granted to you by the store. They’re completely unenforcable by law. If you had called the cops, they would have told you to calm down, and quit being a fucking nutbar. Would you have gone off half cocked if it had been a car with some 13 year old kid with a case of Cerebral Palsy so bad they could barely move? Yeah, he’s an old guy, and he could walk…. But how far? They got a handicap tag because at some point they could not, under their doctor’s recommendation, walk more than 50 feet unassited. Don’t like it? Call Dr. Hugginstuff and get him to fill in some forms for your temporary handicap parking permit.

Now, while I understand completely that being pregnant is an ordeal I will never, ever fully understand, it doesn’t change some simple facts. One of these facts is that many people are worse off than pregnant women. Many people are so close to falling apart that walking at all is a bad idea, even though they must because they have no other people in their lives to help them get by.

I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, Nature’s Miracle, but you could argue ’til your face is as blue as the tag in buddy’s window, but it will never, ever give you more of a right to park there than he does, I do, or anyone else. It’s a courtesy extended to you by the company that owns the store you’re shopping in. That’s it. If I want to be an asshole, and park there, the unpregnant man that I am, you can do sweet fuck all about it. At least, not until you get them to pass a law requiring Maternity spaces, protected by the law, in all public parking areas. You do that, and I’ll lobby for my machete license. I bet we’re both in for a helluva long wait.

Besides, it’s Christmas. Calm the fuck down. It could be buddy’s last Christmas. Hell, it could be your last Christmas. Especially if my bill passes first.