Originally Posted by
bikejunkie
One morning while dropping my daughter off at school, I watched a woman who lived directly across from the school get in her car with her son and drive to the end of her drive. The bus came, the boy got on and the bus drove to the back of the school to drop him off. She then walked to her mailbox, got her newspaper, picked up some litter in her yard, backed up her driveway and went in the house. It was a sunny fall day. The driveway was probably 100' long with another 100' walk to the school. While I can understand she didn't want to walk her son across the street (busy school zone but lots of stop and go with cars turning), she seemed to have no obvious physical limitations. I suppose there could have been some issue not easily noticeable, but she was able to walk up a short flight of stairs to get into her house.
This appalling lack of empathy for those who have physical problems is altogether too common. She may have been, as you assume, a perfectly healthy but lazy person. She could also have been suffering from any number of debilitating problems that make even that short journey torture and tests the limits of her physical and mental ability. You don't know. Until you do be a human being.