I hope this isn't my 15 minutes of fame
By Mike Moran
Updated Mon December 6, 2010
It can be a hard, cruel world out there, especially if you are old, overweight or, sometimes, a guy named Moran.
I got a call last week from Mike Kruse, a reporter with the St. Petersburg Times. Turns out a man on a moped crashed into a man driving a power wheelchair. Kruse had all kinds of questions for me: How big is the scooter market? How big is the power chair market? And on and on. I kind of enjoyed it. Usually, I'm the one asking questions so to have the tables turned was fun.
Here's what Kruse quoted me saying in the story he wrote:
"We're going to see more and more people riding around in scooters and wheelchairs because we're going to see more and more old people who can't walk and more and more heavy people who can't walk."
I think that is accurate.
Well, fast forward to this afternoon. I couldn't find the link to the newspaper story so I Googled myself. The first link to the story lead me to Wonkette, a website that specializes in satire. Wonkette spoofed the Times story under the headline: "In A Troubled Economy, Scooter Manufacturing Is The Only Successful Industry."
Reading the comments on this site made me realize that satire and empathy are often mutually exclusive.
I e-mailed the Wonkette link to a co-worker.
She emailed back: I love how out of that entire, long article, it was your name that got
picked up. Personally, I'd take offense at the morons who are confusing "moran" with
"moron."
I don't care too much about that. These people are idiots. But if this is my 15 minutes of fame I'm going to be pissed.
Mike Moran
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