ST. PAUL, Minn. — “Frankly, I was shocked!” says Elizabeth Kerr of her bizarrely uneventful experience parking at her local Costco. “I’ve been practicing my snappy comebacks in the mirror for months!”
Kerr, 29, suffered a spinal cord injury last year. She miraculously relearned to walk with the help of her physiotherapy team, the last of her life savings and the thoughts and prayers left on that one Facebook post made by her aunt Nina. This grocery trip was her first as the driver since her injury.
“I don’t use anything! No wheelchair, no crutches — not even a little therapy dog in a cute vest!” Kerr continued. “I was all ready for someone to yell at me because I’m young, blonde and frankly quite pretty, but they all seemed very focused on not making eye contact with me. One woman did give me a bit of a side-eye, but her five children were screaming at her because they wanted to go back in and get more free cheese samples.”
Many videos have surfaced online recently featuring people confronting able-bodied-looking people for parking in handicapped spaces. These aggressors are seemingly unaware of the existence of cancer, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Crohn’s disease, neurological impairments, heart conditions and the many, many, MANY other medical conditions that limit mobility but can’t be detected by strangers. Kerr said this is what she expected would happen to her.
Determined to get to the bottom of the lack of confrontation, she asked Costco customers what they would do if they saw someone park and walk away from a handicapped space.
One man named Colton, who was parked horizontally across two spaces in his Dodge Ram 2500, proudly declared, “Oh yeah. I would, like, for sure call out anyone who doesn’t deserve a handicapped spot, ‘cause I tell it like it is. Wait, she sounds hot though? I’m confused. I thought all disabled people were old and ugly, so like, maybe she shouldn’t be there? Can I have her number?”
“Oh gosh, I wouldn’t say anything!” said another woman named Sara. “I mean, how would we even know what’s going on with her? By we, I mean my TikTok followers. My youngest smashed my iPhone yesterday with his sister’s Barbie Jeep and now I can’t use it — TOMMY, GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW — so there just wouldn’t be any point, you know?”
If there were any other would-be heroes in the parking lot, they declined to comment.