This has got to be one of the more ridiculous threads I've seen. Who cares if a FA was coming out of the handicapped restroom? Is it illegal now to use handicapped restrooms if you're able-bodied? Are there fines involved? A salesclerk let me into the handicapped dressing room today because it's so much larger and no one else was using it. Should I have refused on ethical grounds because a handicapped person may have come along while I was still changing? Should FAs be held to a higher standard than anyone else? What is the point of this thread? I don't get it.
I do have a comment though on this:
The people who drive me over the edge are the totally mobile people, often even quite young people and in good shape, who park in the handicapped spaces just because they have a handicapped tag (obvioiusly belonging to someone else) dangling from their rear-view mirror. Sometimes when I hang out in the parking lot with my "security badge" (which I do BTW to protect those spaces for people like your father) I have noticed that about 50 percent of the handicapped spaces are taken by totally well-bodied people.
Punki: It's impossible to judge someone's physical ailments by looking at them. You might read this story:
http://www.whereisgod.net/coping.htm
My maid of honor has MS. She was a model, is young and still looks healthy and beautiful. She's in pain every second though. She puts on a good show, and anyone watching her walk from her car, when she's able, might think she's perfectly capable, but that's far from the truth. She's getting her master's degree at a small college, and if she couldn't get a handicapped space, there's no way she could make it to class. Some disabilities aren't always obvious.