The Priviledged Few

I am not one of those people who takes up a disabled parking space, thus denying a less fortunate citizen their right to park near the front doors at the supermarket or the post office. Here in California, the $500 fine is more than a deterrant. It just isn't worth it. I would rather watch a seemingly healthy person climb down from their H2 Hummer and make their way effortlessly up the steps at Dodger Stadium and bite my lip than to be accused of harrassing a disabled person. Many disabled people do just fine and abuse their situation for the priviledge of good parking spaces. If the rules are to be followed to the letter, the fuckin Bionic Man and The Terminator would qualify for a blue badge. Oscar Pistorius, double amputee world record holder in the 100, 200 and 400 metres could get one if he wanted. This guy ran the 100 metres in 11.16 seconds at the 2004 Paralympics. For those of you who don't know, the record at the 2004 Olympics for normal folk was 10.93 seconds. My personal best over 100 metres is about a minute 30.

Oscar "Fastest Thing on No Legs" Pistorius. Like shit off a greasy shovel.

Even though I refuse to park in a disabled parking spot, I do enjoy shitting in a disabled stall when I visit the bogs. As far as I know there is no fine for this, if there were, I probably wouldn't risk it.

Why Eddie, I hear you ask, must you shit in a disabled toilet? Well, I like to spread myself out a bit. There is always lots of room, they are never out of bog roll and there is a conveniently placed bar for you to hold on to for those "white knucklers". So, given a choice of a regular, cramped, no bog roll stall and one of palatial dimensions with a hand rail, I'm taking the latter.

This policy has only ever backfired on me once. I was in an office building downtown and needed to drop the groceries off urgently. Most office building bogs are kept locked to keep out the undesirable element (me), so I hung around in the corridor for a few minutes until someone came out then rushed in before the door closed again. There were only 2 stalls, one disabled (per the Americans with Disabilities Act) and one for normal people. Naturally, I opted for the spacious and shiny chrome handle barred disabled bog. After sitting there for a few minutes, enjoying the silence and contemplating the uncontemplatable I heard the door to the bathroom open followed by the click, click, click of crutches on the tiled floor. Bollocks, I thought, hopefully the lad just needs to piss and he can use the urinal. The clicking stopped and I could see the lads foot between two crutches underneath the cubicle door.

I heard him mutter "Fuck!" before he tapped gently on the door and said "Will you be long?"

"Er....I dunno mate, having a bit of bother, might be while," I said, hoping he would out of necessity have to use the other stall, allowing me to escape with no embarrassment.

"Okay....I guess I'll have to wait then...."

"Can't you use the regular stall?" I asked hopefully.

"Not really, I need the bar to help me get up..." Fuck, fuck, fuck.....

"Er...right. I'll get on with it then," I replied.

"Are you disabled?" Fuck, fuck, fuckin bollocks.....

"Legally blind mate," I lied. " It's a bugger, can't tell when you're done, end up wiping 'til it bleeds."

"Oh.....I see." He didn't seem to find humour in my remark.

After about 5 minutes I decided that he wasn't going to give up so I gave in and flushed, leaving the stall by pretending to feel my way along the wall. Through my squint, I could see a look of utter comtempt on the lads face. When I got out into the corridor, I waited for a second or two until I heard him yell "BASTARD!!!!!" He had discovered that I had taken the toilet roll.

Heaven, I'm in Heaven......

I felt bad about it afterwards and did so for some time until I got yelled at by a real disabled person for parking in a space (not designated for the disabled)close to the front door at Vons beacuse all the disabled spaces were taken. Angry fucker.....

Picture This.....

You are a paraplegic man, in hospital for some undisclosed reason. You have no family, no friends, nowhere to go. You have no insurance, no way of paying for the treatment of whatever ails you. How much worse can it get?
Plenty, if you happen to be in Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.

More than 2 dozen witnesses saw a white van with "Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center" written on the side dump a 41 year old paraplegic man into the gutter on Skid Row before driving away on Thursday. Apparently, the female driver of the van ignored the shouts of witnesses and applied make-up and perfume before driving away leaving the man, in a soiled hospital gown and with a broken colostomy bag, to crawl from the gutter dragging a bag full of belongings in his clenched teeth. The man was later rescued from the gutter and taken to LA County USC Medical Center.

A spokesman said the hospital's preliminary investigation showed that a hospital ambulance had tried to take the man early in the morning to the Midnight Mission, which he had listed on hospital forms as his home address. But also said the ambulance was turned away because there was no room at the mission.
The man was returned to the hospital's emergency room, the spokesman said; after a shift change, new personnel tried to take the man to his listed address in the van. The spokesman said he did not know whether those personnel knew of the previous attempt or that the address was a mission. But said that on the second attempt, when the van neared the mission, the man "asked the driver to open the door and let him out…. He assured the driver that his wheelchair was at his home and that he could propel himself to his home from (there)."

The LAPD have been working diligently over the past couple of years to reduce the amount of homeless people on Skid Row by arresting them or by putting them on buses and sending them to places like Santa Clarita where they don't really have any homeless people. The hospitals' practice of dumping homeless people on Skid Row is not helping. As quick as the cops can get rid of them, the hospitals are putting them back. Last year, Kaiser Permanente hospitals were busted for doing this same thing. It's obviously a common occurence.

The hospitals explanation is at odds with that of the LAPD's account of what happened. LAPD Officer Eric de la Cruz said he asked the man if he had requested to be dropped off at the location."He said he had nowhere else to go, and the hospital staff told him he could no longer stay there," De la Cruz said. De La Cruz's commander, Capt. Andrew Smith of the LAPD's Central Division, said the man appeared to be "confused and disoriented" when police encountered him.

Jim Lott, executive vice president of the Hospital Assn. of Southern California, acknowledged Friday that "this one slipped through the cracks."Lott said Hollywood Presbyterian had "very strong protocols" in place guiding the release of homeless patients but it was evident they had not been not followed in this case.
"We aren't making any excuses for it," he said.

So, okay. Health Care in the States is a business. BIG business. (Look out Britain - this is the future!) I can almost understand why they dumped him. No one to pay the bill, what's in it for them? I'm not condoning it, I'm just saying I understand the decision. But at the very least, the bare minimum they could have done for the lad before chucking him out of the van was to give him a clean robe and a new colostomy bag. For fucks sake! How much would that have cost? Now that I think about it, no fuckin colostomy bag is better than a broken one.

Bastards!

Things like this make yesterday's adventure with Cunting Sears a real fucking treat.