DotPenn

Get your motor, not your metabolism, runnin’.

After a few attempts, Bart Sharker rolls out of his van, just a few feet from his favorite Wal-Mart. As he waddles toward an awaiting rascal scooter, a broad smile shares his face with dimples and the glaze of a recent donut.

Sharker is just one of the many obese Wal-Mart customers who enjoy all the benefits of handicapped status without actually having an untreatable condition. Sharker gets exclusive handicap parking, a motorized shopping cart and employees at his beck and call to reach products that lie just outside his chunky fingers.

“There were days I thought I was going to give up, break down and go on a diet,” Sharker said. “Maybe even get a job, but the recognition of my handicap has stiffened my resolve to fight for my rights as an OA, an Obese-American.”

“This is where I belong,” Sharker said as Amy Rupe, a Wal-Mart greeter, assists him with finding a scooter that can support his girth.

“Bart’s been coming here since he was, I don’t know, four-hundred or five-hundred pounds,” Rupe said, then adds in a whisper. “We’ve always been tolerant of his condition.”

Once situated in his cart, Sharker affixes a magnetic license plate to the back of his scooter: “Ass, Gas, and Mass… No one rides for free.” He had it custom made.

Then, it’s off to the races. Sharker situates his scooter in the narrow food lanes that stops all movement in the aisle. He seems unconcerned.

“I don’t say anything when them blind guys bring their stinky dogs in here,” Sharker said. “I am just as handicapped.”

To prove his point, Sharker snaps his fingers at a nearby deaf woman and forces her to grab a bag of Frito’s at the top of the shelf.

“Deaf, like that’s a disability, ” Sharker said and adds with a laugh. “How many senses do you need really? Taste, that’s all, buddy. Taste.”

Sharker tears open the Frito’s and pours the contents in his mouth as he zig-zags to the checkout line.

“It’s not about carbs and sodium; It’s about dignity,” Sharker said, then beeps his horn as a fellow OA passes, heading toward the bakery. “Solidarity!”

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