Purple parking spots show how a small gesture can make a heartfelt impact on our vets.
Have you seen one?
The next time you're cruising around looking for a parking spot, you may just come across a purple one.
Spotted in Ohio. GIF via WKBN27.
Who are these purple parking spots for?
They work much like handicap spots, only they're meant specifically for our brave veterans who were wounded in combat. They're a simple way to show appreciation for them.
The purple spots and matching signs are beginning to appear in the parking lots of businesses, churches, schools, government, and medical facilities around the country.
The spots are having a truly profound impact. "I was almost at a loss for words. I was so grateful," Bobby Woody told Military Order of the Purple Heart after seeing two veterans painting a parking spot purple at a Lowe's Home Improvement store.
Full story on MOPH's Facebook page. Image used with permission.
The spots are purple in honor of the Purple Heart, a military decoration awarded to those wounded or killed in combat.
There are over 1.8 million recipients of the Purple Heart living in the United States today, and even more wounded vets. The mission of these parking spots is inclusive of them all, many of whom are handicapped or disabled as a result of injuries received in combat.
Wounded Warriors Family Support, a Nebraska-based group that helps families of wounded or killed soldiers, is leading the effort. Their Combat Wounded Parking Signs program is just one initiative to honor wounded military members.
More than 2,000 signs have been given out so far, according to John Folsom, president and founder of Wounded Warriors Family Support.
Even an eighth-grade class took up the opportunity to pass them out.
"I thought, what a wonderful tribute to our combat wounded veterans," teacher Carol Nicholas told Wounded Warriors. "It'd be so nice to have my students involved in it."
And that's just what she did with her eighth-grade class.
Her students were able to get their hands on 100 parking signs. And today, at least 42 of them are being used at local businesses in their Florida town, bringing the community together in support of their local military veterans.
The parking spaces have made their way from coast to coast, with some most recently spotted in Warren, Ohio.
The best part: The parking signs are easy to get — and they're free.
It's a simple and real-life way to support your local veterans. To request signs for your own establishment, all you have to do is apply online and pay for the shipping to receive a sign of your own.
See more about how an eighth-grade class changed the parking scene in their community and how you can get involved in your own:
A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via 
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.