We had driven into a crowded parking lot hoping to get a Friday night park so we could go to a local Resteraunt. It had been a very long day at work and after being together for so long date night is a conscious choice because it is so much easier to snuggle up in bed and watch a movie for the night than make the effort and get all dressed up, put my face on, spend time teasing my hair and go out on the town with a man who does not see the effort I go to but appreciates that I care to make myself look nice for him. Yes I am not a natural beauty...not too sure that even exists but this is all getting off the topic of the problem I want to talk about in this post.
I will continue...we are in the parking lot going at about 5klms per hour when the taxi in front of us comes to a stop. Not at the side of the road but blocking the traffic in both directions...right in the middle of both lanes....waiting...waiting...waiting...yes there is no where to go so we are waiting for what seemed like a very long period of time and my patience because I am tired is wearing a little thin. There seems to be no movement in the taxi...at least not that I could see through the tinted windows...the taxi driver better not be waiting for someone to get in, because how rude making us wait too...and the waiting continues and I start losing the little bit of Friday night patience I had in reserve to last me the rest of the awkward evening (only awkward because I am strung out with tiredness due to a week of work and all I really want is a quick feed and a man with his arms wrapped around me tucked in our bed as I watch a Friday night movie and he listens to my poor explanations of what is going on in the movie plot!) I finally lose my cool...just a little...and give the rude taxi driver who has delayed my date a toot with my horn...not an angry toot but a toot that says there is traffic waiting behind you if you hadn't noticed kind of toot!
Still no response for a moment...I was hoping the driver would move on but alas no. Then we have some action the passenger door slides open and the first thing I see it a white fist sized ball, a red stripe and then a white cane. Well I feel like an ass right now don't I? But I have to ask the question why did the taxi not stop in one of the disabled parking bays...oh that's right...this is Queensland and this state in Australia doesn't give disabled parking permits to those who are blind passengers in a vehicle. So this is the problem...why does the traffic rules from state to state in this wide brown land differ?
When Deano and I were dating, parking was a problem for a whole other reason, for which my mother made many strict rules so she didn't become a grandmother before her time! We were pretty good kids so we kept the rules the best we could but being from New South Wales I wonder if my mothers parking laws would change like the law makers of the land from State to State???She could have been a grandmother so much earlier...blind people are pretty good in the dark after all! (Perhaps I shouldn't write that...this might be being read by thousands of people and it's supposed to be a responsible editorial piece after all)
Back to the real post reason...in New South Wales their ruling is that each person transporting a sight impaired companion is entitled to park in a disabled parking bay. Knowing that it is difficult for a blind person to enter a shopping centre on their own they allow the driver to pull up into an appropriately close marked parking bay. Since moving to this beautiful state of Queensland the biggest difficulty has been navigating our way through parking lots with cars moving about, reversing out of spots and all the time trying to do this with a blind man and 4 small children. Take the children out of the picture the problem still stands. How many times has Deano walked into a cars side mirror, or bash his shines on tow balls that stick out behind vehicles as he tries to stay as close to the side of the parking lot lane so he is not collected by passing by shoppers looking for a good spot to place there car. What if like this taxi driver I just wanted to pull into the shops to drop him off safely without guiding him into the shops myself. Now I am not speaking for Queensland transport when I suggest that they must believe that all blind people would have a sighted companion to help them. Of course we all know that this is not a true statement, many blind people walk unassisted so I don't understand the logic of not allowing them to get to their destination safer by just letting them have a simple pass on the car that allows their driver to park in a safe place so the blind passenger occupant can enter the shopping centre safely.
Now back to the original statement..."Never let a problem to be solved be more important than a person to be loved." Yes this is a minor issue and yes we have been tackling this problem for more than ten years now so I guess it has given me the opportunity to show my husband just how much I love him by parking where I can get a space and assisting him to navigate the lanes of traffic to safely deliver him into the shopping centre. Yes we have taken out a few mirrors together, and yes he has had many bashed in knee caps from tow balls but when all is said and done these little trials in our life are just that, little, and if we focused on them constantly such issues could become major and where is the fun in that! Perhaps our new dating idea could be to go to the local drive in Cinema...where neither of us has to leave the car to watch the movie and there is pleantly of parking to be had...now that's a date night parking idea worth exploring!
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| Our local drive in Cinema |
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