I saw this article yesterday.Wealthy Manhattan moms are helping their already-advantaged children skip the lines in Disney World by paying disabled tour guides $130 per hour to pretend to be a part of their family. This allows the disabled guest and up to 6 "family members" to skip to the head of every line in the park. Plus, they ride a motorized scooter with the rent-a-paraplegic displaying a handicapped placard. So everyone who sees them thinks, "Awww, it's so nice of Disney to accommodate families with special needs members." Except the only special need these people have is for some elusive demon to return their missing souls.
I've been trying to decide how to characterize this story and how to describe my distaste for the practice. This morning I decided the closest analogy was prostitution. Though decidedly less risky to your health than prostitution, this practice has wealthy moms (the "Johns") exploiting disabled people (the "tour guides") with a certain amount of the profits going to the escort company (like a pimp).
But honestly, this exploitation is not what really pisses me off. What really pisses me off is the sense of entitlement that these wealthy people have that neither they nor their children should have to wait in line like the "regular" people.
I've thought about this one overnight so as to examine my own reactions to this story. Of course, they are not doing anything illegal (although it does sound like a violation of Disney's rules). But the free market is not without limits. And what are these moms teaching their kids? That money allows them to have different rules and obtain advantages others cannot obtain? That they are better than everyone else, and they can lie to get what they want, because they have money? That ain't no Ayn Rand right there. That's unadulterated entitlement.
Here's a quote:
“My daughter waited one minute to get on ‘It’s a Small World’ — the other kids had to wait 2 1/2 hours,” crowed one mom, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida.
“You can’t go to Disney without a tour concierge,’’ she sniffed. “This is how the 1 percent does Disney.”
This is how the 1% does Disney. I also think Disney is being derelict in allowing this to happen. The practice does tarnish the Magic Kingdom, making it seem a little less magical.
While poor families are losing their spots in Head Start because of austerity measures, the richest of the rich are renting disabled people so they don't have to wait in line to ride space mountain. (To be fair, I guess it does create a job or two for some disable people in Orlando. But not much of a career, riding Mr. Toad's Wild Ride 6 times a month.) And how many families cannot even afford a vacation? But they can't be bothered to wait in line in an amusement park.
And she thinks it's funny. It's part of the thrill, to her, crowing and snorting about how her daughter didn't have to wait the 2 and a half hours the other people had to wait.
There is not a war on the wealthy in this country. But with this behavior that is both entitled and exploitative, there soon will be.
With access to the best school money can buy, how does a person turn out like this: unable to get Above their privileged Raisin' and be a human being who sees others less fortunate as human beings too? And how do they view their rented wheel-chair whores? Just more of the "regular"people to be used and then left behind? It's like a scene from the Hunger Games. But it's not fiction.
