I parked in a parking space and turned off my engine. My walk was perhaps 50 feet to the open ATM.
This scenario really got me angry! There's people everywhere who complain about gas prices being too high, but these same people are the ones who leave their engines running for several minutes as they wait for people or, as in this case, go to the ATM. And this woman's fatness just added to my frustration. She probably (well, I hope that she) is aware that her fatness could cause health problems and makes it hard for her to walk around, but she couldn't make the connection that a little walking would be helpful as exercise.
I was so angry at the whole situation I could barely contain myself.
There I was, 6:30 in the morning. It was dark, a pretty much empty parking lot at the strip mall, only one other person in sight, and she got me all worked up in anger about my shallow conclusions about her and her fat lazy lifestyle.
I am so in the wrong here it's probably not funny.
Maybe she has a medical condition that causes her metabolism to operate slowly. Maybe she just had hip replacement and can't walk more than a few steps. Maybe her ill grandmother or child was waiting in the car and needed the engine running to keep the life support or air conditioning or heat running or something.
Instead, I immediately assume that this woman is fat because she has no self-control over her horrible eating habits, and is too lazy to walk ten extra steps to the ATM, and too stupid to realize that an idling car is using the gasoline that she feels is too expensive at $3.299 a gallon!
The older I get, the more bitter and judgmental I become. It's sad and pathetic and shallow of me and I need to fix this about myself and my attitude.
But fat lazy people, really? Don't they realize how fat and lazy they are? Can't they take little steps, literally, to start improving their situations? Do they really enjoy being fat and lazy?
Oh, I am the worst person of the most hypocritical and vile sort for posting this baseless rant against people I don't know. I need to reassess my priorities and goals in life here, and must learn to accept other people as they are and not be so quick to judge harshly.
As a fat lady who just finished almost two years on medical bed rest (for two different reasons), there are lots of reasons why walking, or being away from one's car can be extremely difficult for a person of any weight. One of my grandmother's regular customers had burnt the bottoms of both of her feet and it made walking extremely painful, but because her scared feet were always in her shoes, it wasn't common knowledge. Many people gave her stink-eye for using disability parking spaces, even though she had a permit, and many other things that she would do to avoid walking.
ReplyDeleteWhile I am sure there are some other fatties out there who are just lazy, I don't go to the gym myself, but I don't have the money or the time, but I don't think all of us are. Also being excessively heavy is torture for the joints and stepping up to movement needs to be done under the guidance of a medical professional in some cases, especially where damage already exists.
As for the car running, when I worked for the USFS the rule was 5 mins or less, let her idle, 5 mins or more, shut her down. The thought being that restarting the vehicle (especially a larger vehicle like a full size truck) took more gas than letting it idle for up to 5 minutes, especially in cold weather.
My 2 cents.
Chill out dude. Live and let live.
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