No Place to Go

I know what it’s like to be homeless because I was once homeless myself. And I’m here to tell you that it was hell! I arrived at the check-in desk of the luxury hotel around noon and I told my name to the annoyingly cheery woman who scrutinized a computer screen on the other side of the desk. After a period of silent suspense, she flashed me a resolute thumbs up to assure me that everything was A-Ok with my reservation. She said that I would receive a text when my room was ready for occupancy. I said that I was ready to occupy my room right now but she reminded me that check-in time wasn’t until 2 p.m. That meant that I had two hours to kill. So I went to the hotel bar and ordered a drink. As I sipped my gin and tonic, I wondered if I could enjoy it while seething over the fact that I gave in to bureaucracy so easily. I should have argued more with that woman behind the desk! What kind of force to be reckoned with was I? When I had an opportunity to speak truth to power, I just accepted defeat and walked away. There was another person sitting at the other end of the bar. I figured that he must also be homeless. But he didn’t look the part. He wasn’t bedraggled at all. He was clean shaven and dressed in a well-pressed suit. He looked like a businessman. I wanted to go up to him and express my solidarity with him as a fellow homeless person. I wanted to encourage him to be proud of who he was and tell him that he didn’t have to try and pass as a housed person. But before I could make a move, he finished his drink and left. So I finished my drink, but that had only killed 30 minutes. I was staring in the ugly face of the dreadful reality that I would still be homeless for another 90 minutes. Not knowing where else to turn, I went to the hotel restaurant and ordered filet mignon, medium rare. But when my server brought it to me, it was well done! Oh well! I ate it anyway and at least that killed about 90 more minutes. I received a text informing me that my room was ready for occupancy. And when I finally got to my room, I immediately flopped down on my king bed and reflected on my period of homelessness. Like I said, it was hell! I mean, I believe that hell is a place where filet mignon is abundant, but the only way they serve it is well done! (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH

Words

Oh boy! It looks like the legislators are at it again! They’re trying to help out the cripples, whether we like it or not! A couple of state legislators in Massachusetts are trying to push through a bill that’s entitled “An Act amending certain laws relative to individuals with disabilities.” It strikes phrases such as “handicapped persons,” “disabled individuals,” “disabled American veterans,” and “mentally retarded” from state laws and replaces them with phrases such as “persons with disabilities,” “person with an intellectual or developmental disability.” And of course it has received unanimous support so far. And why not? To vote against something like that can get you pegged as a Cripple Scrooge. But voting for it gives you an opportunity to go around pretending that you love cripples while you quietly work against their best interests. Don’t get me wrong. I think language is important because it shows what we really think about certain people. If you call someone a retard because you mean it as an insult, that shows what you and people who find that funny really think of retards and cripples. It shows that you think of them as lesser-than and spewing propaganda like that provides the dehumanizing cover that is needed to justify mistreating or ignoring certain people. But all this reminds me of when the federal government passed a law that was called Rosa’s Law. Its purpose was to change federal law so that “references to mental retardation” were changed to ”references to an intellectual disability” and references to “a mentally retarded individual" were changed to references to “an individual with an intellectual disability.” And this law also passed unanimously and was signed by Barack Obama. Thus, the words mentally retarded were forever stricken from all federal documents. At the time, the feds gave money to states that had an ICF/MR operating within their borders. That stands for intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded. Those places were essentially nursing homes where they locked up cripples who needed a high level of assistance and took away their rights. They still exist in every state and they still get lots of money from the federal government to lock up cripples who need a high level of assistance and take away their rights. Only now, thanks to Rosa’s Law, the federal government calls them ICF/IDs. I bet if some legislator introduced a bill to defund those places and spend the money instead supporting people in real community settings, it wouldn’t pass unanimously. Banishing a word is one way of destigmatizing it. Or those who have been burned the most by the stigma can do the opposite and say it loud and proud as often as they can until it isn’t so dehumanizing anymore. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH

Exclusive Treatment

If you are both crippled and native American, it must really suck to be you sometimes. After all, when you hear the word exclusive, you probably get a double case of the willies. I mean, as a crippled person, I can report that that word gives me the willies. For most people, receiving exclusive treatment makes them feel special and proud. If you live in a gated community, that is an exclusive environment because you are surrounded by a fence that is supposed to keep the riff raff out so as to protect you from them. But nursing homes are the kind of exclusive environments cripples are used to. They’re supposed to keep the riff raff fenced in so as to protect everyone on the outside from them/us. And for most people, exclusive schools have names like Harvard and Yale. But the exclusive schools cripples ended up in had names like the Minnesota School for Feeble Minded and Colony for Epileptics. And native Americans were also shipped off to exclusive schools like that. The goal of all of these exclusive schools was to refine as many of these savages as possible so as to turn as many of them as possible into English-speaking white people. But at the exclusive cripple schools, they had no such goals for any of us. Even though some of these places call themselves developmental centers, the only thing that people who have lived in those places have developed is butt callouses All that we were expected to do was sit down and shut up. I guess the powers that were must have thought that we were all destined to be savages no matter how hard they tried to save us. So why bother? (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH

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