It’s common for people to make assumptions about a young person: she must be in perfect health, he must be able bodied, etc.

Here’s a typical example. See the difficult encounter the young man in this story experienced.

AITA for staying in a disabled spot, or was grandma overreacting?

I’m 25, disabled and I have a valid disabled parking permit. I drive an older BMW, a nice one in my opinion.

After my physiotherapy, I walked back to my car, parked in a disabled parking spot.

I got in and spent a few minutes on my phone before heading home. Just taking a short breath, I always do that after physio.

He’s about to face what a lot of disabled young people deal with.

The parking lot was nearly empty. Next to me were three regular open spots and across from me there was another empty disabled spot with two free spaces beside it. It’s a free parking area, by the way.

Then a woman, somewhere mid 60s, drives up. She stares at me for a few seconds, then parks her car half almost crisscross across the disabled spot opposite me.

She gets out, walks straight up to my window, and says: “Why are you taking up a disabled spot? You’ve been sitting here playing games for fifteen minutes and I want to park here.”

I was a bit surprised . So I said, “I’m allowed to park here. I was just doing something on my phone and was about to leave.”

Before I could even finish my sentence, she cuts me off: “You don’t need to justify yourself.”

It’s so frustrating for him.

Yet she keeps going, telling me it’s rude of me to sit there and that I should move over because she “can’t park her car anywhere else, because its too long.”

She came over a bit rude. I tried to stay polite, but I could feel the frustration creeping in.

This kind of thing happens sometimes, though, someone sees a young guy in a car and immediately assumes he’s abusing a disabled spot. No one sees why that blue card is there in the first place.

Eventually, she walked away mid-sentence. I was a bit confused. I wasn’t blocking anyone, I had a valid permit and I was planning to leave.

So was I really being rude, or was she just frustrated?

Here is what folks are saying.

LOL honk away.

All anyone needs to know is that you have a permit.

It’s weird how hostile she was.

Simple!

More to the point.

I have physical disabilities, too, and I’m tired of seniors making assumptions.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.