There for You... ?
I was at a NAMI meeting. My motorcycle — legally plated, legally parked — was in a handicap space. An Allied Universal Security Services guard pulled into the lot, double-parked her company SUV across two handicap spaces, and came over to confront me about mine.
I cut her off before she got a word out. Told her if she had questions about my motorcycle, she was welcome to walk herself over and look at it. Then I pointed at her vehicle: white Chevy Equinox, Allied Universal logo readable from across the lot, tires straddling two handicap spaces she'd just blocked.
What I said was close to this:
"You came to harass someone who is legally parked, while you are illegally double-parked in two handicapped spots. Something about the plank in your eye — let me get my camera."
She was back in that SUV and out of the lot before I could get a clean shot of her.
I got these.
New Mexico plate 482•XLS. Allied Universal Security Services Equinox. On a company vehicle, in two handicap spaces, at a NAMI meeting.
"There for you."
That's the tagline on the Allied Universal vehicle. It's on the door. Read it carefully — because those two handicap spaces she blocked were not, in fact, receiving that service.
There is a specific kind of institutional laziness that wears a uniform and mistakes authority for exemption. This guard didn't park there out of necessity. She parked there because it was convenient, and because the badge had told her the rules were written for other people.
They weren't. They aren't. And when someone with a camera made that point, she ran.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
She chose the wrong parking lot.
Alexius McMullin is a cybersecurity specialist, motorcycle safety instructor, and autism advocate living in Albuquerque, NM.
