Calling Your Invisible Bluff

I’m a nanny and I’m taking my charge to her basketball game, played at the local elementary school. Even though we get there early, the parking lot is packed, so we find street parking a block or two away and walk to the school. As we near the gym, I notice one of her teammates arriving with her dad, parking in the last open spot, right by the gym — one reserved for people with disabilities. The car has no disabled parking license plates or tag on the rearview mirror.

I know invisible disabilities exist, and it’s possible the dad has a heart condition or something that prevents him from walking a long distance. But I find it odd that he has no tags for parking there in that last open spot of the lot, so I call out to him.

Me: “You forgot to put up your disabled parking pass. My mother-in-law got a big ticket when she forgot.”

She had taken my disabled nephew to a park, and she got the ticket dismissed after showing the parking pass.

The dad didn’t say anything to me but said something to his daughter, and she went into the gym on her own while he got back in the car and drove off to park elsewhere.