Free Money

As you know, I spent five of my adolescent years as an inmate in a state-operated boarding school for cripples, aka the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (SHIT).  Well I heard a rumor that one of my fellow inmates is now a multimillionaire. I checked into it to find out how the hell he managed to do that, because everyone wants to know the secrets of how the rich get rich. From what I heard, he pretty much became rich overnight. And anyone who’s really determined to get rich can do exactly what he did.

Here’s the story I heard:

My fellow inmate was born with cerebral palsy. A couple decades after leaving the cripple school, he took a vacation. He landed at the airport and a vehicle with a wheelchair lift was dispatched to take him to his destination. En route, the vehicle crashed. And because the driver did not tie down my friend’s wheelchair, he went flying, chair and all. My friend broke his neck and now he’s a cripple squared-- a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy.

But here’s the lucky part. His destination was a Vegas casino and the vehicle was the van the casino used for toting crippled guests. So I ask you, if you’re going to sue somebody for making you crippled, could you present a jury with a more unsympathetic villain than a Vegas casino? My friend collected $8 million, so I’m told.

Okay so who’s ready to get out there and strike it rich the same way my friend did? How about it? Let’s see a show of hands! Who’s with me? Anybody? Hello?

Come on! It’s easy! You’ll never have to work again! It’s free money!

There are some cripples who never worked a day in their lives and they get free money every month from the government. Anyone can get in on this scam, too. All you have to do is become crippled. You’ll receive about $550 a month from Social Security, so you’ll have just about enough cash to live a nice, spacious, wheelchair-accessible port-a-potty. Oh and in order to keep your checks coming, you also have to take a solemn vow that for the rest of your life you will remain as broke as a crack whore.

Any takers? And no, you can’t have the monthly check without the crippledness and the poverty. It’s the whole package or nothing.

Nobody? Going once, going twice...  Maybe it’s not such a sweet gig after all, eh? I know the feeling.  I’ll tell you which cripples used to make me jealous.  I’m jealous of the ones who get big fat book deals! Talk about free money! That’s got to be the sweetest gig of all! I used to think I’d do anything to land a big fat book deal. But then I heard about this guy who wrote a bestseller about how a bear ripped his face off. And it wasn’t fiction.

No thanks. I’d rather be a broke and obscure writer who never had his face ripped off by a bear.

That’s how it is with all those cripples and their free money. It surely ain’t free.