Those Amazing Telepathic Service Dogs

I’ve heard about those amazing service dogs that somehow communicate telepathically with the crippled humans they serve. The dog senses that the human is about to have an epileptic seizure and it jumps up and knocks the human to the ground and  lies on top of them until they stop lurching around so they don’t hurt themselves , or something like that. That truly is amazing. Even Lassie couldn’t do shit like that.

I wish there were service dogs that communicated telepathically with other types of cripples who don’t have epilepsy. There were times when I sure could have used one.

Like for instance, when I was a kid, I had a terrible addiction problem. I was hopelessly hooked on those claw machines where there’s a bunch of stuffed animals in a big glass box along with a crane that looks like a claw.  You drop money in the machine which buys you about a minute to operate the claw with joysticks and try to grab a stuffed animal and drop it in the slot so you could reach in and grab it and take it home.

Whenever I passed one of those machines, I couldn’t resist indulging and I’d blow all my money. It would’ve been great to have a service dog that sensed telepathically that I was about to do something stupid and stopped me by knocking me out of my wheelchair and lying on top of me on the ground until the impulse passed, or something like that.

Or as an adult, I’ve been in that situation everyone ends up in sooner or later, where you’ve broken up with someone but in a  moment of weakness you get back together. But then it doesn’t take long to remember why you broke up in the first place. It sure would’ve saved me a lot of grief had one of those amazing telepathic service dogs been around when I was about to make that drunken phone call at 3 a.m. to knock me out of my wheelchair and lie on top of me on the ground until the impulse passed, or something like that.

 (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Purchase books by Smart Ass Cripple at lulu.com

https://www.lulu.com/search?adult_audience_rating=00&contributor=Mike+Ervin&page=1&pageSize=10

 .

I Think I Got Away With it

 I was talking to a smart young woman who is a high school senior. She told me she's  applied to 12 colleges and is waiting to hear back from them so she can choose which one to attend. She asked me how many colleges I applied to when I was a high school senior. I said I applied to one.

People said I was a smart kid when I was a senior but my college options were limited nonetheless because I was crippled and that was 1974. That was the year after the passage of The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the federal law that said entities receiving federal money couldn’t discriminate against cripples. The Rehab Act hadn’t had time to take root yet so there weren’t a lot of cripple-accessible college campuses. About the only college that was accessible enough for me to attend was Southern Illinois University so that’s where I applied and luckily enough I got in or I’d have been screwed.

I laugh hard when I hear those scandalous stories about people who are rich and/or famous doing stuff like paying bribes and cheating to get their kids into some hot-shit college, like Stanford. I laugh hard because I think about how ridiculous it would be for anybody to pay bribes and cheat to get into Southern Illinois University.

But actually, I’m lucky I didn’t have to cheat or bribe my way into Southern Illinois University. The high school I attended was a state-operated boarding school for cripples, which I refer to as the Sam Houston Institute of Technology, because it forms an acronym that conveys the quality of the education I received there (SHIT). But the real name of the place was the Illinois Children’s Hospital School, which is even worse. That’s the name of the school on my high school diploma. It hardly sounds like an elite college prep academy. And my grades were mediocre, because I was a teenager and I didn’t give a shit. And my score on my college entrance exam was mediocre, too, because I was a teenager and I didn’t give a shit.

So I’m still amazed that the person at Southern Illinois University who reviewed my college application didn’t stick it right into the shredder, after sharing it with all of their coworkers for a good laugh. But for some reason they accepted me. And it’s too late for them to take it back. I think I got away with it.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Purchase books by Smart Ass Cripple at lulu.com

https://www.lulu.com/search?adult_audience_rating=00&contributor=Mike+Ervin&page=1&pageSize=10

When the Bottom Isn't the Bottom

According to the dictionary, there is such a word as subminimum.

I wish the dictionary was wrong about that, but, sadly, it is not. Subminimum should be enough of an oxymoron to invalidate itself as a word. Minimum means bottom and sub means beneath. So how can you go beneath the bottom? Is the bottom the bottom or isn’t it?

 I hear the word subminimum a lot, but only in reference to the wages some crippled workers are paid. There’s a provision in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that allow employers to pay some of their crippled employees less than they’re allowed to pay their uncrippled employees. That’s why I’ve heard a lot of stories of crippled workers being paid pennies per hour.

And so when it comes to paying crippled workers, the bottom isn’t the bottom. The example sentence in the dictionary that uses the word subminimum ought to be,  The cripples starved because their wages were subminimum.

Some people in Congress have tried to change the law to get rid of that stupid provision. But their legislative efforts have died of neglect in committee. Believe it or not, there are some heavyweight political forces that make it their business to ensure that the law doesn’t change, (I suppose that’s not that hard to believe.) I won’t share with you the altruistic rationale they present for paying cripples shit. That would be like dumping a bucket of horseshit over your head and I know you get enough of that as it is. I like to think of Smart Ass Cripple as a safe space for people seeking refuge from horseshit—a horseshit-free zone, if you will.

Suffice it to say that there are a lot of greedy-pig “nonprofit” organizations that could lose big money if they have to pay cripples no less than minimum wage. Maybe the example sentence in the dictionary that uses the word subminimum ought to be, Bosses who pay cripples pennies per hour have moral and ethical standards that are subminimum.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Purchase books by Smart Ass Cripple at lulu.com

https://www.lulu.com/search?

adult_audience_rating=00&contributor=Mike+Ervin&page=1&pageSize=10

Stripped of My Courage Award

  If you are crippled by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease, you could win a Courage Award.  It seems there are two organizations that give out an annual Courage Award to somebody with Lou Gehrig’s .

But as far as I can tell, no organization  gives out a Courage Award to people who have that which makes me crippled. And even if there was such an award, I sincerely doubt they would give it to me. And if they did give it to  me, I’d wonder about them. Like Groucho Marx said, I wouldn’t join any club that would have me for a member.

And I’d probably be all stressed out if I won a Courage Award because I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Because I’d figure it would then be my responsibility to go around being the symbol of cripple courage all the time and that’s sounds like a lot of work. But then again maybe it wouldn’t be much work because it seems like cripples don’t have to do much for some people  to think we’re courageous except sit there and be crippled. That automatically makes us courageous.

That’s the problem. I don’t know what it takes to be the symbol of cripple courage. I’m not sure anybody does, not even the people who give out and receive Courage Awards. I imagine that cripple Courage Awards don’t come with an expiration date or anything like that. It’s not like you’re the symbol of cripple courage for a year or so and then you’re off the hook. No, you’re probably expected to be the symbol of  cripple courage for the rest of your life. And so I’d be constantly worried that I would inevitably say or do something that would be considered to be decidedly uncourageous. And then I might be stripped of my Courage Award. How embarrassing would that be? I bet that’s never happened to any cripple ever. 

What a disgrace.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Purchase books by Smart Ass Cripple at lulu.com

https://www.lulu.com/search?adult_audience_rating=00&contributor=Mike+Ervin&page=1&pageSize=10

The Brain is Weird

 

 

There are a lot of things that you can’t make easy jokes about anymore.

Like for instance, some old television shows and movies and comedians used to get a lot of joke mileage out of getting drunk. But since then, much has been made of the pain drunk people have caused others, like drunk drivers, so you can’t be so quick to make jokes about drunkenness or it might seem like you’re making light of that pain.

And blows to the head aren’t considered to be as funny as they once were. The Three Stooges constantly played blows to the head for laughs. Bowling balls would roll off the edge of a shelf high on a wall and bounce off the head of some poor sap below. Or Moe would get mad at Larry or Curly and hit them over the head with a pickax or sledgehammer.

But comedians don’t do that kind of slapstick these days. Maybe it’s because we all know that in real life blows to the head can cause brain injuries and brain injuries cause people to say and do weird shit and it might seem like you’re making light of people who are crippled because of brain injuries.

I suppose that’s a good thing to be mindful of, but I still tell funny stories about people with brain injuries. One of my favorites is about when  I was involved in a sexuality workshop for cripples decades ago. For the first session, the facilitator wrote names of body parts on the board and told us all to say slang names for these body parts. This was an ice-breaker exercise. The facilitator’s goal was to make everyone feel comfortable discussing sexuality openly and frankly.

But two of the participants were guys who were crippled by brain injuries. I guess they had the kind of brain injuries that dull one’s inhibitions and impulse control.

Because the facilitator began by writing on the board the word breasts.

And the two brain-injured guys enthusiastically responded with, “Casaba melons! Golden bozos!”

Vagina.

“Spasm chasm! Love canal!”

Penis.

“Joystick!”

I’m sorry, but I think that’s funny stuff. What’s funny about it to me is that it shows how weird the human brain is. It’s so elaborately balanced and interconnected that if you mess with one part even a little bit, there’s no telling how much it’ll throw the rest of the brain out of whack.

And it’s also funny because it shows how much we mighty humans are slaves to our brains. If our brain  tells us to say or do something, we’re pretty much powerless to resist. But it sure as hell doesn’t work the other way around. Those brain-injured guys in the sexuality workshop both walked gimpy, too. That shows what a stubborn sonuvabitch the brain can be sometimes. If it doesn’t want to do something, like tell the legs to quit screwing around and walk normal, there’s not much we can do about it.

Let's be honest, there’s plenty funny about the brain.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Purchase books by Smart Ass Cripple at lulu.com

https://www.lulu.com/search?adult_audience_rating=00&contributor=Mike+Ervin&page=1&pageSize=10

Dissuading a Dumbass

 If I'm ever with some dumbass who's about to do something stupid that could render them crippled, like diving into shallow water or doing a handstand on a speeding motorcycle, maybe I ought to just sit back and let them do it.

I've never been in that situation, but what if I am? It's good to role play these things through my head in advance so if it ever does happen I'll be able to react fast.

Most people wouldn't have to think about it for very long. They'd determine right away that the proper thing to do would be to say to the person who's about to do something stupid, "What the hell's the matter with you? Do you want to end up crippled?"

And they're right. Of course the proper response is to do whatever one can to dissuade the dumbass. But I don't think that would be that easy for me to do.

Because I’d feel like it would be like me saying, “Hey, you don’t wanna end up like me, do ya?” And I hate when cripples are made into boogie men like that. That’s why cripple cure campaigns give me the willies because I feel like the idea behind them is to make everybody feel like it’s terrible being crippled and the best thing we can all do about it is to not create anymore cripples.

And I just don’t feel like that about myself or other cripples I know. Being like us isn’t such a terrible thing. There are plenty of reasons why no one would want to be like me, but none of them have to do with being crippled. Those reasons would exist whether I was crippled or not.

I also can’t buy in to the idea that being a cripple is always inferior in every way to being a vert (which is what I call people who walk, because it’s short for vertical). I have a couple of friends who are quads who like to point out that one of the things they like about being a quad is that their friends never ask them to help them move.

So I would have to say to the dumbass who was about to do something stupid, "Hey dumbass, before you do anything stupid, you need to weigh the pros and cons of becoming crippled. On the one hand, your friends won’t ask you help them move and you’ll get much better parking spaces. But on the other hand, being crippled is really expensive because you gotta buy a lot of pricey stuff like wheelchairs and everybody thinks being a cripple is always inferior in every way to being a vert and---"

By that time, the dumbass will have gone and done whatever stupid thing they were going to do.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Purchase books by Smart Ass Cripple at lulu.com

https://www.lulu.com/search?adult_audience_rating=00&contributor=Mike+Ervin&page=1&pageSize=10

The Ambassador

 

 When you’re a cripple, you often end up getting help from people who are paid shit for helping you. It's inevitable because helping cripples is a job that pays shit.

 So then you panic because you fear that the person helping you are going to get fed up and walk out on you right in the middle of doing whatever it is they’re helping you do. So you feel this suffocating obligation to make it up to them by being an ambassador who represents cripples as fine and fascinating people, even though it’s not your fault that they’re being paid shit.

 Like for instance, take those people who assist cripples at airports. They push you around in those clunky airport wheelchairs and /or assist you boarding the plane. I’ve read that those folks are paid something like $4 an hour. And the asshole private contractors who pay them shit like that figure the cripples they help will make up the difference by tipping them.

So when I’m being helped by one of them, I feel a strong obligation to be on my toes and ready to talk about sports or Descartes (at least enough to fake it) or whatever realm the conversation may enter. I look for an opening to tell a joke and to impart some wisdom. It’s probably because I want them to say at the end of the day, “I may hate my job because the pay is shit but I love working with those wheelchair people. They’re so witty and wise.”

The tipping part is stressful, too, because I feel really conflicted about it. I resent that I’m expected to tip because I feel like if I do so I’m enabling the private contractors to continue being assholes. Why should I have to pick up their slack? Why can’t they just not pay people shit in the first place?  But if I don’t tip, the only one I’m hurting is the poor schlub who’s helping me. The private contractors have us both by the balls. The less witty and wise I am, the more I feel obligated to give a bigger tip. I’m sure the schlubs would be more inclined to give me a pass for not being witty and wise if I tipped big.

Another example of people who are paid shit for helping cripples are the people who come to our homes and help us do the stuff everybody has to do every day like get out of bed, get dressed, take a dump, etc. I have a crew of such people I’ve hired to help me in my home. I call them my pit crew.

The people who do this kind of work are usually paid around minimum wage and they get no benefits or sick pay or vacation days or anything like that. So when I’m working with my pit crew members I try my best to be witty and wise so they won't be so quick to get fed up and quit because they’re being paid shit.

It’ll be a great day when things have changed so much that I can just let myself be a grumpy old asshole now and then, like every human does. And at the end of the day the people who help me will say, “Those wheelchair people sure are grumpy old assholes. But I sure get paid a lot for helping them.”

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Purchase books by Smart Ass Cripple at lulu.com

https://www.lulu.com/search?adult_audience_rating=00&contributor=Mike+Ervin&page=1&pageSize=10