#96 Challenge This

So there I am in the grocery store the other day. And I’ve just slipped by the greeter on my way out. My little grocery store has apparently decided that the only thing between them and Walmart oblivion is to get a greeter of their own. Like value shoppers give a crap where their merchandise is made or how much a place pays its employees or whether or not they keep them under the minimum hours necessary to qualify for health benefits. It’s all about saving two cents on a Chinese dohickey damn it. And the greeter. Walmart has happy greeters, ergo the world is a happy place.
Anyhow, for the most part, greeters are unidirectional, so if you time it just right, you may be able to get out without having him give you his pseudo-sincere “thanks for shopping at Super-mega-value-mart.” What is a “mart” anyway?
When I emerged into the vestibule, or as I like to call it, the cart corral, I was poised for battle. It’s normally at this high traffic area that I have to dodge over-zealous teenage bagboy cart stackers, frantic moms with their whiny kids who refuse to be buckled into the gaily-tricked-out kiddy carts, and shuffling oldsters whose lives have become so meaningless and insubstantial they can’t even trip the electric eye on the automatic door opener. Just outside the doors, there was a small card table with a coven of those most scary creatures any shopper has to face, Girl Scouts selling cookies. I sidled over to my right, hoping to time my exit so one of the oldsters would run interference.
That’s when I noticed one of the most inspirational scenes I’ve seen in a long time. A fellow in a motorized wheelchair with one of those little toggle things on the armrest—joysticks I guess they’re called—was leaning slightly forward and instructing one of the bag boys. “No,” he said, “there are two more.” The two of which he was speaking were stuffed animals. He already had six of them in his lap. The machine his chair was parked next to was one of those rip-off challenge machines where you feed in a quarter or two and manipulate a joystick to move a little grabbing hook crane thingy over a pile of stuffed animals, dip it down to grab, lift it up again and drop it in the prize hole. I’ve tried it and it’s a bitch. This guy in the wheel chair had piled up eight of them. Bitchin.
It was a testimony to the resiliency of the humanity. They say blind people can smell better, deaf people can taste more, and a deaf dumb blind kid can sure play a mean pinball. Well I’m here to tell you, Mister Wheelchair Guy could sure wield a mean joystick. Joy indeed. This guy’s going: "Winning stuffed animals with a toy sky hook? No problem. I just used my real joystick to get me across four curbs, a bumpy median, and six lanes of rush hour traffic."
I will never scorn the term “differently abled” again.
America, ya gotta love it.