Amazing and Astounding

I, Smart Ass Cripple, have fooled the doctors. Just about any cripple who ever lived can make the same claim. Back when I was just a wee Smart Ass Criplet, the doctors said I wouldn’t live to be 10 years old. When I got to be 10, it was adjusted up to 15. When I got to be 15, it was adjusted up to 20. When I got to be 20, those doctors were dead.

And here I am. But I must admit that I, Smart Ass Cripple, have even fooled myself. I have seen some truly amazing and astounding things that even I, in my wildest imagination, would have ever dreamed I would live to see.

In fact, just the other day I saw something that left me breathless with astonishment. I saw a vendor selling cans of beer for $9 each. It was one of those outdoor concert venues where you’re captive. They practically give you a full cavity body search as you enter, just to make sure you’re not smuggling in anything "dangerous," like a six pack of beer. They confiscate everything but your wallet. And then they say, “Enjoy the show!” So the vendors have a monopoly.

Now when I was a criplet the doctors didn’t scare me. I figured I live to be 90. But I would have laughed if some fortune teller told me I would see with my own eyes a can of beer selling for $9. And here’s something even more unbelievable: I bought one! Actually, I guess that’s not so unbelievable.

I wish I was visionary because I probably could have made some nice money off of all this underestimation. I should have bet the doom-and-gloom doctors that I would last long enough to see the day when the president of the United States would address the nation to admit he got a blow job from an intern. Impossible!  I probably could have gotten 5,000 to 1 odds on that. But I’m far past that milestone and bearing witness to yet more mind-boggling phenomena, like professional hot dog eating competitions. Who could have predicted that this frail criplet would grow up and live in an era where humans make big sport out of cramming 50 hot dogs down their throats in 10 minutes? And the heroic winners of these competitions strut proud and flash their medals as if they were Olympians. And they ride in limos stocked with champagne and babes. It reminds me how utterly stupefying life can be.

If you can judge a man by the stunningly overpriced beer, commander-in-chief hummers and disgusting celebration of gluttony he has seen, then I have lived a long and rich life. So suck on that, doctors.

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