Feeling a lot of shame
The awfulness of it hit me as I walked through the lot to my car. I had parked in a handicap space. It was not on purpose.
Pulling into the lot at the mall that afternoon, I circled the lanes a few times looking for something semi-close. It was 92 and humid. A shorter walk to the store would be better.
Then I spotted the empty space, at the front of a row near a light pole. Pulling in required a sharp turn of the wheel. Once in the space I backed out, straightened the wheel and pulled all the way in. Because the store I was headed to was in front of me, I got out the car and walked past the front of the car and into the lot.
An hour later, the horror hit me. There in the space, covered by my back tires, was the familiar yellow wheelchair in the blue circle. I had taken a spot earmarked for someone with a handicap sticker.
How could I have made this mistake? For one thing, there was no handicap signpost marking the space. I would have seen that, and avoided it. But why didn’t I see the emblem painted on the pavement? I believe that in making the sharp left turn into the space, the front of my car obscured it. And without the signpost there, I didn’t know I was about to break the law.
And more to the point, possibly deny the space to someone who needed it.
I sat in my car, angry with myself and embarrassed. It’s part of human nature – mine, at least – to want to right our wrongs. Maybe parking lots should have something like the “honor boxes” that some roadside vegetable stands have. Take some tomatoes, but leave a few dollars in the box. In my case, I would have liked the parking lot to have a box in which to put some dollar bills for charity, to make up for what I did.
And then it occurred to me. Did someone see what I’d done? With cellphones everywhere, it’s hard to get away with much of anything without having it posted somewhere. Will I be the next shamed internet sensation?
We all screw up. Now, though, a mistake can live through a few news cycles. The ubiquity of phone cameras means the young mom who was having a bad day becomes the internet shrew who screamed at her kid in the grocery store.
There was no shaming note on my windshield, so I figured I was safe. Driving home, I thought about what I would say if someone had caught me on camera.
I would have said that I am ashamed I put my car in a handicap spot, and that I’m sorry I did so. I didn’t see the painted marker. But by then I would have been branded the rude, able-bodied driver who helps herself to handicap spaces.
Except for a speeding ticket or two and some parking tickets, I’ve never broken any law. I would have felt better if there were a ticket when I returned to my car – a bit of penance for my carelessness.
I don’t think it really mattered that I didn’t see the handicap emblem on that parking space. I screwed up. But so far, at least, it was nothing more than a lesson learned, privately.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.