On a Lark on a lark?
As as occasional user, I can tell you that this is on the money. It is far easier for an able bodied person to walk about the store without one. I’ve seen kids ride them for fun, but kids do dumb things. No one else goes slower and sits without a need.
I am big guy (300 LB and it ain’t muscle). I have no problem getting around “a certain big box store”. I usually don’t care who is riding the scooters. Some disabilities are far from obvious and a lot are temporary. My wife had to use a scooter once due to a bad hip.
It does anger me when I see people who are **obviously **able bodied use the scooters.
I say obvious because I watched this couple(both on scooters, both thin and no canes or o2) walk 3 isles rather briskly when people or pallets were in their way. All the while, yelling to their 14ish son to bring the cart around. After about fifteen minutes of this the son “wised up” and got his own scooter and began pushing the cart around soccer style with his scooter. The parents had no problem with that.
I’m sorry but that sort of behavior is wrong. I prayed someone truly in need of a scooter for any reason readily apparent or not was not doing without.
My mother is obese (probably 250-280 lbs). She also has killer arthritis. The extra weight certainly doesn’t help, but nor is it the cause of it. She doesn’t ride in those scooter things, but I can forsee it happening in the near future because her knees kill her after a few minutes of walking.
It would seriously piss me off if someone saw her riding one and thought, “lazy fat fuck”.
It never once occurred to me that scooters provided by retail stores were intended for the permanently disabled, mobility impaired shopper. Because, see, those people would already own wheelchairs, walkers, canes, etc.
I assumed they were for people who don’t shop becuase it’s too hard to get around, but not being “disabled”, they are unable to get a physician to order mobility devices for them.
Look, businesses won’t do ANYTHING that’s not a direct benefit to them. If they can get those people to shop at THEIR store becuase they make it easier for them to shop, I’m sure they don’t care WHY they’re using the cart. And I’ve never once seen any kind of tag on any of those carts admonishing the able-bodied user not to dare use them.
I don’t want this to head into Pit territory, but how do you know if the obese person on the scooter has a medical condition? Chances are, all of the ones you seen have some sort of condition by virture of them being obese.
When I go to the store, I see plenty of obese people walking the aisles. So obviously there’s something separating the obese person in the scooter from the one who’s walking.
Also, seems to me that simply being obese carries enough stigma that an obese person wouldn’t want to draw more attention to him/herself by being in a scooter. Unless, that is, they really really needed it.
[Moderater Warning]
Given that I’ve already commented twice about refraining from posts like this, I’m making this a formal warning rather than simply a note. These sorts of posts contribute nothing to the thread.
This goes for everyone else too. Knock off the potshots about the obese, big-box stores, and other targets of convenience.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
nevermind
You have not made any such “observation,” since you don’t actually know if the people you have seen have any conditions requiring the use of the scooters or not.
I’m yet another chubby checking in who has used the scooters. I’m young and have no health problems, but I had occasion to need to use the scooter when I broke my ankle badly. Obviously, shuffling around with a basket or cart and crutches is pretty much impossible, so it was pretty important to me. As I left the crutches behind at the front of the store and it was winter time (thus, the cast was covered with a boot-like thing), you might have assumed I was just lazy-assed unless you looked closely.
People were actually very nice. Even though I could get up and teeter on the cast well enough to get things from high shelves, people often offered to help. Even later, when I was not on the crutches but still recovering and using a cane, I still used them a couple times for grocery shopping. It was already exhausting and painful enough to get to the store; slowly pacing about for an hour to get the things I needed was pretty much impossible. Again, even without the cane present and without a cane or any visible signs of injury, I never noticed any searching looks.
As people have pointed out, many disabilities are invisible, such as heart conditions or back problems. Even though people can walk from the car to the store, they may not be feasibly able to get around well enough to shop.
Believe me, navigating the store in one of those carts is a pain in the ass. I am sure there may be a small handful of lazy people who abuse them, but really, I avoided shopping as much as possible and stopped using the things as soon as I could. I cannot imagine using one now just to save walking around without some sort of disability; who wants to make shopping more frustrating and time consuming with no payoff?
bullshit. I’ve noticed in increase in people using scooters who have no obvious handicap. That’s what the word observation means.
Why is it that so far everyone here assumes that ‘morbidly obese people’ ATE their way up to their 300lbs? There are many conditions that cause excessive weight gain and I know, because I have not one but two of them. I’m not morbidly obese or anything like it but I’m not the slip of a thing my husband married. (Size 5 and 104lbs until my last pregnancy 20 years ago.)
I’m an ND, I understand chemistry, biochemistry, physics, biology, and all the usual disciplines. Some people can’t lose weight - that’s a fact.
Due to a truck accident six years ago, I also require to use a wheelchair. I need an electric one but the insurance company won’t pay for it and I’m too badly injured all over to move a manual one by myself, so DH has to push me if we visit the city. I can stand up for a few minutes, not without pain, but I can do it, so I can make my way around our cabin, but I can’t stand up long enough to cook dinner or wait for water to boil etc. When I go to WallyWorld, I give 'em my manual wheelchair - the Sears cheapie we bought ourselves, and I take the electric cart and do my shopping. I look healthy, I’m friendly, I smile, and I can stand up to get something from a higher shelf, provided I keep one hand on the buggy. I probably wouldn’t appear disabled to most observers.
My predominant thought at this moment is that we need a whole lot more of ‘There but for the Grace of God go I.’ (Attribute it to Simon and Garfunkle if you’re allergic to all things Biblical.)
Jesse.
False… *anyone *can lose weight by making modifications to their diet.
I still don’t see why someone with arthritis can’t animatedly direct kids. What is it about arthritis that prevents that?
Ah, so a handicap doesn’t “count” unless it’s visible to an uninformed observer. Got it.
You should thank your lucky stars that you don’t have an “invisible” disability that makes people look down their noses at you, when it’s none of their frakkin’ business.
sorry, but eating the minimum required by my diabetologist and nutritionst still does not lose me any weight … it literally is the minimum to keep me healthy and provide the macro and micronutrients I need to stay healthy [though I kick in a good mulltivitamin and calcium to make sure I have all the bases covered.] My average day runs between 800 and 900 calories.
Exercise would be nice, but since I cant walk, and the nearest pool I could use for laps being 30 miles away sort of creates a whole new can of worms. I suppose I could quit my job to drive the hour round trip to swim, but then I couldnt afford the car, gas, or insurance …
Gee I dunno, what is it about arthritis that prevents someone from walking but not swiveling around in a chair?
My example was one of many that I’ve noted over time. I’ll say it again so you can understand it fully. I’ve noticed an increase in the number of people using store scooters with no obvious signs of disability. It doesn’t mean each person I see is abusing the store’s generosity but it does indicate the probability of it. I’ve been actively watching this for the last 5 years.
If people are abusing use of scooters then this affects those who actually need them. I have no way of verifying this person’s blog but it suggests Walmart has a store policy for dealing with the problem, which means there’s a problem.
I’m not sure what you don’t understand so I’ll repeat what I said earlier. I made an observation over time that I’ve noticed an increase in the use of scooters by people who do not appear to need them. This is something I’ve been consciously following for about the last 5 years. I’ve dealt with handicapped parents so it’s something personal to me. If in your opinion everybody on a scooter is handicapped based on your observations then we are in disagreement.
To suggest that a person cannot make an educated observation about another person’s condition belays any sense that people are capable of picking up on subtle cues. No single observation carries with it the weight of certainty but many observations over time can provide a trend. It becomes my frakkin’ business when the truly handicapped don’t have the equipment available when they need it.
I am honestly not trying to argue with you here; your observations may be spot-on for all I know. But allow me to postulate an alternative to your observation: You are witnessing more folks using the scooters in total (those who have an obvious disability and those who don’t) because more stores have more scooters now.
Five years ago, our local Wal Mart maybe had two scooters. Our local super market (Martin’s) had none at all, and one public-use wheel chair. Recovering from same-day surgery back then, I probably would have sent my hubby to get what I needed, and hope he ended up with the right stuff. Now, I go too, because I know they’ll have an available scooter for me.
Just something to think about.
It’s possible and I actively consider it in my observations.
I’m not disagreeing that some of my observations would be wrong. I’m sure some of them are. But on average, I’m seeing a trend. Some of them are so obvious as to warrant action. I’ve had kids thrown out of a store for joyriding. If the trend continues I suspect that stores will eventually require some proof of need to ensure carts are available.