Scoot Over!

There’s this conflict of emotion whenever I see a horrendously overweight person riding one of those motorized wheelchairs at the store. While I pity the man or woman who needs a cart just to haul their massive frame so they can enjoy the luxury of shopping on their own, I have to laugh at how miserable this country must be getting if some of its citizens, whether their obesity is genetic or otherwise, need devices such as these just to function in society.

Today, a guy no less than 400 pounds was using one of the scooters to shop when it shut down near the main aisle by the registers. A loud, recurring beeping noise was coming from the machine, and after checking on it during a downtime, I concluded that the battery was dead. Without getting scientific or technical, I imagine it would require more energy to transport a heavier load over the same distance than a person who, say, broke their ankle and was, say, “normal” size.

It’s very likely the battery was still weak from its previous passenger, a slightly lighter woman, but I still find it funny to think that the beeping might have been a cry for help from the poor, overworked machine. I don’t claim to speak “scooter-ese”, but I swear that thing was complaining, “I don’t get paid enough to tote these chunkers around this store every day.”

These special wheelchairs are being provided to help the elderly and the crippled complete their necessary errands with greater ease, not as a mean for the lazy and the obese to avoid the necessary exercise they need to stay healthy. There must be some way to change this…

Just put a sensor in the seat the blasts this song whenever the weight registered is over 300 pounds, and the occupant’s fat face will be so red with embarrassment that they’ll immediately ride to the sporting goods section and buy some exercise equipment! Problem solved!

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