ENABLING THE DISABLED/ THE REBUTTAL

I've always complained about the surplus of disability spaces in parking lots. All the prime (and empty) parking spots are designated "disability." There they sit, unoccupied, as I drive off into the hinterlands in search of a oil-stained patch on which to store my car. Hiking back, I curse the stenciled blue wheelchairs that spoil the otherwise perfectly good parking spots.

Some lots have as many spaces for the wheel people as for bipeds. Except for the time I broke my foot and personally ticketed each illegally-parked car myself (after smacking their doors with my crutches), I have no patience being displaced by disabled no-shows. Even with the war in Iraq, there are not enough disabled people to fill all the empty disabled spaces that litter our parking lots.

And not to digress, but how 'bout those nice, wide, disability stalls where you could spread out your breakfast and read the paper while doing your business. How often have you sat on a wet, cramped seat, precariously balancing your coffee on the paper dispenser, knowing the spacious throne to your left lay vacant? Am I wrong?

And where are those stalls when you need them? Again, when I would hobble into the restroom on my crutches, the disabled stall would always be occupied. Peering under the stall door, holding your pee-pee for dear life, you'd see no crutches. The occupant, also peering under the stall door, could see your crutches and would be too embarrassed to to admit he'd selfishly usurped your stall. I once out-waited the jerk for a half-hour, just so I could plant my crutch in his crotch. But that was then.

Now, in another disability disgrace, a blind woman in Albany NY has raised the bar. She navigates around town using a seeing-eye horse. Great. Just one more inconvenience for me.

Not a full-size horse, mind you, but a miniature horse just 29 inches at the withers-- tipping the scales at just over 120 lbs. The horse replaced the blind lady's seeing-eye Labrador, after the dog was run over by the bus discharging him.

The seeing-eye horse snuggles, fetches, and leaves 6-pound dumps on public transportation, shag carpets, and the freshly-mopped classroom floors where the pony's blind master teaches special education.

While the blind woman misses her dog, her horse's abilities as a herd animal, help in predicting how an object is moving in relation to herself. Being a seeing-eye animal, the horse is forced to forego blinders, which in turn forces her to process too much information for a pasturized grazing animal. This can lead to skittishness, and sadly, stampedes.

And unfortunately, as a prey animal, the horse will take off at the slightest provocation, like dogs, cats, and daffodils --dragging the poor woman behind her. Once, she was dragged clear home to Schenectady. Thank God she couldn't see how close she came to the cars on the New York State Thruway.

But all this is a small price to pay for the love and companionship of the little pony, or so we are told.

To accommodate the horse, the city's fleet of 150 buses has been ordered to retrofit to larger, horse enabled disability ramps, and to start carrying bales of hay.

The bus company has until Jan. '08 to install salt licks. Public transportation riders are advised to wear hip boots.