Newsworthiness

There is definitely something to be said for not being absurdly rich and famous. One big benefit that I can think of is that Cosmo will never want to write about me. And I hope I can keep it that way. Take, for example, that Taylor Swift chick. She’s reached that ridiculous level of fame where she could record herself farting and distribute it to radio stations and they’d all play it over and over again. And then she’d go on a world tour.’ So of course Cosmo wants to write all about her as often as they can. They ran something not long ago that went into great detail about the outfit she wore when she went out in public recently, right down to the accessories, which included a purse that cost more than $3,000. And in the pictures of her the purse didn’t look any different than the purses my mother would pay $10 for at Montgomery Ward. I wondered if the fact that she was the kind of celebrity who could and would pay more than $3,000 for a damn purse is why Cosmo deemed her as newsworthy But I bet that after Taylor Swift paid more than $3,000 for her new purse, she still had plenty of money left to put in it. I bet it wasn’t anything like the time I bought a money clip from a street vendor. After I paid him for it, all I had was an empty clip. So I’m confident that Cosmo will continue to be disinterested in me as long as I keep buying most of my wardrobe at Target and Costco, since Montgomery Ward no longer exists. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH

Rude Cripples

It hit me that I could probably get away with being a lot more rude than I already am, just because I’m crippled. Take, for example, that time when I finished checking out at the grocery store and I headed for the exit, which was down a narrow passageway. Behind me were three verts (which is what I call people who walk because it’s short for vertical). Because I usually drive my motorized wheelchair slowly, especially when I am trying to maneuver through tight spaces, I stopped and let the verts go ahead of me. I was just trying to be polite because I figured that they would never be able to zip past me in the narrow passageway and I didn’t want to hold them up. It’s like getting stuck behind some pokey-ass driver on the Interstate. So the verts all hustled past me and then I wondered what would’ve happened if I hadn't decided to be polite. Suppose I just went first and made all the verts walk real slow behind me. I’m sure that they would have been tempted to do like they would do when they get stuck behind a pokey-ass driver on the Interstate and speed around me, giving me the finger as they passed. But I know that none of them would’ve actually done that for fear that some surveillance camera might catch them in the act of being mean to a cripple and that footage would be forever immortalized on the internet. In that regard, I am a member of a protected class. The poor verts probably would have just plodded along behind me, trying not to show that they were seething inside. If I was a vert walking real slow and holding them up like that they probably would have impatiently pushed on past me. But since I am crippled, they would have had to just put up with it. As I watched the verts scurrying away, I must admit that I was mad at myself for blowing a golden opportunity to be rude. And then I was mad at myself for being mad at myself for something as silly as that. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-

Permission to Call me Cripple

If you are a steady reader of my stuff, then, by the power vested in me by me, I hereby give you my blessing to call me cripple. I figure if you can read something called Smart Ass Cripple and keep coming back for more, you must be a person of great moral fortitude. But please note that this blessing only applies to me and you. If you call the next cripple that comes along a cripple they might take offense. I can’t speak for anyone else. But what matters most to me is who’s saying it and what they mean by it. Like for instance, take that vile bigot Charlie Kirk, who just died. (That’s right, if you came here looking for someone to heap praise upon a creep like that as if he’s some kind of saint or something, you’ve definitely come to the wrong place. As a matter of fact, I think you should leave right now! Do not pass Go, do not collect 200! Just get the hell out of here now! I don’t want you here! And the blessing I issued earlier to call me cripple doesn’t apply to you! You’ve done nothing to earn it! You’re not a person of great moral fortitude!) That Kirk guy went around trashing transgender people left and right. So if he uses the word tranny, it’s safe to assume that he means it as a put down. But I have a good friend and assistant who is transgender and has always come through for me. And even though I am not transgender and she is not crippled, I call her tranny all the time and she calls me cripple. And she calls herself a tranny and she calls all of her transgender friends trannies. It’s like that Jerry Lewis guy. For years he hosted that annoying telethon where he went on national television and tried to convince the millions of viewers that being crippled was the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone, but uncrippled people could make everything better by just calling in a pledge to the number on the screen. I heard him use the word cripple and it offended me a lot because I knew what he meant by it. I would never give anyone like that permission to call me cripple, nor would any self-respecting cripple that I know. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-

Why I Never Cheer for Team U.S.A.

I never cheer for Team U.S.A. That’s curious because it’s not like I’m one of those guys who never gets sucked in by sports. I often wish I was one of those guys. I spend way too much time and energy following my local sports teams. I know that hardly any of the players on those teams have ever come from these parts and that the games are only another form of entertainment. But when these teams break my heart, as they often do, I envy those who genuinely don’t care. But when it comes to international athletic competitions, such as the Olympics, not only can I not cheer for U.S.A. athletes to win, but I find myself cheering for whichever country’s athletes are competing against us to kick our butts. I think it’s because I think that the main reason a lot of people are so passionate about international athletic competitions is because of the political implications. If your country beats another country in a track and field match, it’s like you beat them in a war. And I would never want anyone to think that I am one of those annoying guys who goes around pumping his fist and chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!” whenever Team U.S.A. wins. But I think that’s what it’s all about for a lot of people. They feel that everything is all right with the universe, and God is still on the throne, as long as the U.S. continues to prove that it is superior to every other country in every way. About the only team sport that I don’t care much for is soccer. It may be fun to play but I find it boring to watch. An exciting game ends in a 0-0 tie. But one thing that I really love about soccer is that Team USA always sucks at it, or at least our men’s team always does. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH

Small Town Cripples

It is indeed a very small town, population only about 1,500. But I could sense the presence of cripples all around me because there were birdhouses all around me and when there are so many birdhouses there are usually cripples not far behind. Because making birdhouses seems like the kind of thing they’d probably have small town cripples do. They probably bus them off to a local sheltered workshop every day where they make birdhouses. That seems like a cripple rite of passage. Back when I was a wee criplet, they made me make a birdhouse, only I wasn’t in a sheltered workshop at the time. I was in a rehabilitation center and during my occupational therapy sessions I made a birdhouse. Except my birdhouse wasn’t as artistic and elaborate as the ones that were lined up along the wooden railing of the strip mail that was in the business district of the small town, with various price tags on them. Mine was a wooden box with a round hole in front for entry and a perch that was made out of a Dowell rod, beneath the hole. I painted the house white and the roof and perch red. I never mounted it outside or anything, probably because I feared that if I did I’d be accused of being some kind of bird slumlord. I had a relative who was a small town cripple. He now lives in a bigger town but back when he lived in a small town he didn’t exactly make birdhouses but he did make what looked like ceramic sculptures of horse heads. They looked like giant chess pieces except they came in a wider variety of colors, such as red, blue and yellow. I don’t know what his creative process was, but all of his horse heads looked alike. That made me think that he must’ve poured some stuff into a mold of a horse head until it solidified. And I imagined that there was one of his horse head sculptures on every mantel piece in that small town. It’s easy to lend a helping hand to your local cripples when you live in a small town. All you have to do is keep the local sheltered workshop going strong by purchasing a birdhouse. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-

The Fun Enforcers

The woman ran up to me and said , “ Are you enjoying the park?" I said yes so she said, “Well , that’s good. And you know , we have a beach wheelchair for you!” I wanted to let her down gently. I figured that this must be one of those state parks I’ve been hearing about where they’ve purchased a bunch of equipment that’s supposed to make natural terrain a lot more cripple accessible.. And when this woman saw me she got all excited because she probably thought that since I am an actual card-carrying cripple, I’d be dyig to use the beach chair. But I wasn’t. It is true that beaches are probably the most foreboding of environments for wheelchair cripples like me because beaches are full of sand and wheels sink into sand real quick and then you’re stuck. However a beach chair looks like a glorified lawn chair with four big wheels on it that are supposed to be able to zip right through the sand, thus enabling wheelchair cripples to frolic on the beach like normal people do. But the beach chair doesn’t look very comfy. It looks like if I sat in it my ass would start hurting in about ten minutes. I don’t want to frolic that bad. I was also afraid that if I turned her down too emphatically, the situation would soon deteriorate into one of those pissing matches like I used to get into at Jerry Lewis cripple summer camp. Everybody in charge there was a vert (which is what I call people who walk because it’s short for vertical). And they seemed to think that their job was to make sure that the cripples were having a good time, whether we liked it or not! They were the fun enforcers. They seemed to think that the more we said that we didn’t want to do something, the more we really wanted to do it. Take, for example, horseback riding. I hated horseback riding. I couldn’t hold my balance very well on the back of a jerky horse. I was terrified that I would fall off and crack my skull. That wasn't my idea of fun. So inevitably, one of the fun enforcers would come along and crouch down to my eye level and try to convince me that I’d discover what a load of fun horseback riding was if I would just give it a try. I felt ambushed. I heard stories of crippled kids being dragged kicking and screaming to the horse stables or to arts and crafts or whatever. That’s why I feared that if I was too firm in telling this vert woman at the state park no that she might chloroform me and I’d wake up down on the beach in the beach chair with my ass hurting. That wasn’t my idea of fun. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-

Living on Borrowed Time

I know that I’m living on borrowed time. And I have my mother to thank for that . Because when I was but a wee criplet, my mother took me to see a lot of doctors That’s what the parents of criplets were told that they were supposed to do about us back then by the people who were considered to be the experts. They were other doctors and therapists and people who worked for behemoth charities for criplets and such. And they were all verts (which is what I call people who aren’t crippled, because it’s short for vertical). At first I wondered if these experts thought that if they sent criplets like me to enough doctors, maybe sooner or later we would come across one who had a magic potion or something that would cure us. But I came to think that they really didn’t know what the hell to do about a criplet like me and so when they told our parents that they should take us to see a lot of doctors, they were probably punting. I think that my mother never felt quite comfortable following through with all of the surgeries and braces all of the things that the doctors told her I had to get. Because she usually left the decision about whether or not to follow the advice of the doctors up to me and I almost always said no. I guess I was right about that, considering that I will be 70 and none of those doctors would’ve predicted that I would still be around, even if I did everything they said. But I really felt like I am living on borrowed time when I watched a documentary about cripples. There was a Canadian cripple in it and judging by how his body looked, l figured he was the same genre of cripple that I am . He also relies on a crew of people to come into his home to help him do all of the things he needs help doing, like getting out of bed and getting dressed. But he was having a lot more trouble managing and maintaining his crew than I do. The Canadian cripple said that his caregiver was his mother, until she recently died. I remembered when I was a teenager and my mother said to me, “ I love you but when you’re 18, please get out of my house.” So when I went off to college a few years later, far away from home, i hired my first crew member and I’ve had to hire about a hundred more since then. And by the time my mom died about 20 years later, I had long since fulfilled her dream and gotten out of her house. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI