All of us are trying to make the world a better place, but sometimes those good intentions can become misdirected due to our own prejudices.
Take Matt Milstead, for example. The 36-year-old is a hard-working quadriplegic who owns a BMW, one which he parked in a handicapped spot before a playing a game of wheelchair rugby at the YMCA in Grand Rapids, Michigan. When he returned to his car after the game, he found a letter under the door’s handle.
“I would love to see your wheelchair!” the letter read. “I’m guessing male 25-35 years professional who thinks he’s got the world by the a**. But I could be wrong.”
When asked how he responded to the note, Milstead, who works for the Social Security Administration, told WOOD TV he was puzzled that a stranger would just assume that the car’s driver had “tried to steal a close and convenient spot.”
But his wife, Leslie, wasn’t puzzled. She was furious and knew this anonymous vigilante wannabe jumped to conclusions based only on the fact that they saw a BMW parked in a handicapped spot. In response, she wrote a letter to the anonymous person on her Facebook page, making clear that her husband would gladly “trade his BMW and handicapped parking pass” for working legs and hands:
“You were so close on the age, he’s actually 36, and he is a professional with a full time job.
He is also a quadriplegic, which for him means that he can no longer move his legs or his fingers in either hand. He has no grip.
So, if you are willing to give him your functioning hands and legs for the rest of your life in exchange for his 6-year-old BMW and handicapped parking pass, I’m sure he’d make that trade.
Why are you so confident that a handicapped person couldn’t be a hard worker who is successful and owns a nice vehicle?”
The Milsteads have since gone public with their story will help relay the problems with anonymous vigilante justice in parking lots:
“It’s kind of ironic the guy was trying to right a wrong. He assumed some jerk had parked in a handicapped spot that shouldn’t be, and so he was really trying. He probably felt like a good person and thought he was doing a good thing, but the problem is he was wrong.”
Because, as Leslie pointed out, “It’s not going to stop those people that are abusing it. And the damage is done when it gets to someone that really deserves to be there.”
[Featured Image: WOOD TV]
Quadriplegic Returns To Handicapped Spot To Find Disturbing Note Left On His Windshield is an article from: LifeDaily