Photo credit, Tony Webster, Creative Commons

Let me sing you the song of my ethical struggles.

One of the nice things that came from my last hip surgery, aside from rapidly diminishing pain, was my temporary disabled parking tag (it’s like the one pictured above, but red). When I asked my doctor about getting one, during my pre-surgery examination, he said, “Sure, I’ll fill out the form for you. How much time you want on it?”

I said, “I think the last time I got about three months.”

He said, “Ah, I can do better than that for you. I’ll give you one that goes till August.”

And thence comes my ethical dilemma. Barring complications, I can’t foresee needing such a permit anywhere near that long. In fact I’m relatively sure that I won’t be able to justify using it (to myself) much past next month.

And yet there is a voice, somewhere inside, that cries, “You earned it! You paid your five bucks for it! Use it as long as you can!”

I am ashamed of that voice. I once knew someone who obtained a disabled parking permit he didn’t deserve, “through a friend,” and used it regularly. I judged him pretty harshly for it.

I’m even a bit ashamed to use the permit right now. Objectively speaking, I’m in a lot less pain than I was for years before the surgery, when I had to park with the cis-abled folks. I can make an argument that I should destroy the permit now, that I’m cheating on a moral level.

My evil inner voice replies, “Even more reason to use the thing as long as you can! Society owes it to you! Don’t you deserve something for your suffering?”

No, I don’t really think so. There are people with genuine, serious disabilities who need those parking spots. I can easily imagine someone who uses a wheelchair circling the lot, unable to find a space because posers like me are taking them up.

I got groceries tonight, and used a convenient disabled spot in front of the Cub store. When I was done, as I was driving out of the lot and thinking about writing this very blog post, I saw a young man walking toward the store. He was painfully thin, and he leaned heavily on his cane. “He can’t even drive,” I thought. “He walked here from home.”

Was that a sign? I think that was a sign.