The laziest place on earth

Sprog 2 settled down with some buttered toast to watch one of her favourite movies yesterday morning, Wall-E. And it reminded me of a story I wrote, but never published, about a shell-shocked visit I paid to Florida. Since I’ve been busy disposing of taking the roosters to a farm instead of blogging, I thought I’d share it with you. “Remember the obese humans in Wall-E – all those people who’d forgotten how to walk and rode around on motorised chairs instead? When I first saw the movie, I thought it was a damning indictment on the future of Western society. Then I visited Florida and realised it was damning indictment on current Western society. I was on holiday at Disneyworldand surrounded by motorised scooters. At first, I thought Disneyworld was simply a convenient holiday destination for lesser-abled Americans. But, as the days passed, it became clear that while the theme parks were handicapped-friendly – some rides even had specially designed cars for wheelchairs –  many of the people using the scooters were just plain lazy. It was impossible that so many people in such a small space were incapable of standing on their own two feet. Watching everyone zoom around would have been comical if it wasn’t so sad. There was the scootering 50-something couple with their adult daughter riding closely behind. There were the gaggles of nattering middle-aged women at the designated smoking areas, with their fags in one hand and the handles of their scooters in the other. And then there was the lovey-dovey couple – he was walking, she was riding. He was thin, she wasn’t. When it was time for lunch, he was despatched to the restaurant to find an empty table before she was prepared to leave her vehicle and amble in. Oh, ok, maybe she had some chronic fatigue thing that wasn’t visible. But it looked like she was just LAZY. I told you “judgemental” was my middle name. Sure, walking can be tiring sometimes, just ask my three-year-old, who screams blue murder whenever we try to leave our apartment without her pram. But I would have thought that’s what all the park benches and food outlets in Disneyworld have been designed for – frequent rest stops. In Australia, motorised scooters are rarely spotted outside retirement communities, but they’re a booming industry in Florida. There are dozens of rental websites exhorting their benefits: “You do not have to complain of hurting feet and being tired when you arrive to your hotel after a day of walking in Disneyworld!” and “Orlando tourists or travellers, even those who aren’t elderly or suffering from health problems, like renting scooters. In addition to giving you the option to cover more ground, renting a scooter can also make it easier to bring a few personal items along with you.” Silly me, I thought that’s what handbags and day packs were for. The websites even try to make their scooters sound sexy: “The Dream has a fun, chopper-style motorcycle look, including chrome accents and the largest wheels available on any mobility scooter rental!” Not to mention having “a weight capacity of  500 pounds” [for the record, that’s a whopping 226.8kg]. Hell, you’d be crazy not to want one. Of course, it must be hard for Americans to retain their enthusiasm for walking when so much of their country is so geared against it. It’s almost hazardous to your health to travel anywhere without a car. As a tourist, you find many towns don’t even have footpaths, so your progress to the nearest restaurant or convenience store is an anxious stumble over drains, gravel and garbage, as trucks and cars thunder past. And, while open-air parking lots are a dying breed in Australia, the “strip mall” is hot property in the United States. In Los Angeles, virtually every store has a vast expanse of bitumen laid outside it so that people can drive to the door of their chosen retail outlet. Los Angeles is famous for its ugliness, but even tropical Hawaii shocked me with in its urban blight. Little towns in Oahu, described in my guide book as quaint and arty were anything but. Forget the concept of the laid-back island life and the sleepy main street, it’s gone, replaced by endless carparks interspersed with dirt and potholes. Window shopping isn’t something to be savoured, but an expedition to be survived as you skirt the edges of the road to reach the next boutique. Could Australia travel down the same path? I hope not. But I’ve found the irresistible allure of the car culture creeping into my own psyche. I’m currently living without one and often yearn for my former life, when I simply opened my front door and stepped into my car, drove to my local shopping centre, parked undercover and walk a few steps to my favourite yum cha restaurant. So easy, so fast, so convenient! Instead, I must rely on my legs or public transport to get me around. Hopefully that means I’ll live a longer, healthier life. Just as long as I avoid getting skittled by a car – or motorised scooter* – along the way.” * I’m not kidding, it happened to someone on the cruise last month. Nasty.