You Can't Park Here, You Have Kayaks!

I love to watch people's faces whenever we park in a handicapped spot with the kayaks on the car. Their gazes range anywhere between contempt to admiration. One of the bests looks was one of pure confusion. We walked out of a store just as this guy was walking slowly past our car. His eyes kept going from the handicapped sign to the kayaks and back again with a look of total confusion on his face. As he passed the car and we approached his gaze went from my boyfriend to the kayaks to my boyfriend and back. I didn't think he could look anymore confused than he did before but, Oh boy, did he!  I bet if I looked hard enough I could see the smoke coming out of his ears as his brain tried to work that one out but I was too busy trying to hide my laughter.

One morning on a two and half hour drive to the put in spot, we pulled off at a gas station to use the facilities and parked in the handicapped space. An older gentleman who came in after us was then "forced" to use the space two spots down right in front of the window washing station.  He made a big show of putting up his handicapped placard (he wasn't in a handicapped space), making sure to send us angry glances for good measure, then proceeded to get out of his car without any mobility aids whatsoever and wash his windows and when he was finished he gave us one last dirty look before he got back into his car and drove off???

Best of all though, was the time when we went to Target. We were in line at the pharmacy picking up some sinus medication before heading to a Kayak Club Mixer with 3 of the kayak clubs in our area.  As we waited in line a man approached us and explained that he saw us parking in the handicapped spaces with kayaks on the car. Immediately, I thought "Oh geez, now what?  Does he not see the wheelchair!?" Then he proceeded to tell us that he has Parkinson's disease and that one of his friends has been trying to talk him into going kayaking. He asked us if we would be willing to take him out sometime. We told him that would be great and gave him our number. Unfortunatly, he never called. I hope his friend was able to get him into a kayak and that we will run into him again, on the lake next time!