Smart Ass Cripple Spreads a Little Sunshine

Sometimes, in my role as a cripple, I am called upon to bring a little sunshine into the lives of those who are not crippled.

I’m happy to do it. I feel as if it’s my duty to brighten up their day. One such opportunity to spread a little sunshine arose not too long ago when I went to the drug store to pick up some condoms. The condoms were beyond my reach so I looked for a store clerk to assist me. I looked around. Whom would I select to have their day brightened? I chose a young woman stocking shelves in the next aisle. I led her to the condom rack. I pointed out the pack of condoms I wanted and she took it down off the hook, all while maintaining her professional poker face. But I knew that deep down inside she couldn’t wait to go home so she could tell whomever she goes home to, “Guess what! Today I helped a crippled guy buy condoms!”

So now I look forward to buying condoms for more reasons than one. Next time I think I’ll really give some lucky clerk an exciting story to tell by selecting the extra-jumbo size condoms or something exotic like the mint-flavored French ticklers. Or maybe I’ll buy a dozen condoms and come back the next day and buy a dozen more.

By doing this, I am not just spreading sunshine. I am also spreading cripple awareness. Some cripples say everything a cripple does in public spreads cripple awareness, even buying condoms. We can’t escape it. We are always representing cripples whether we like it or not, so we have to be on our best behavior. But sometimes I feel I can best spread true cripple awareness by acting like an ass hole. I do this not on behalf of myself but on behalf of those of my crippled brethren who happen to be ass holes. Their rights are often overlooked.

But true freedom for cripples will only be achieved when crippled ass holes have the same rights as ass holes that can walk and talk and see and hear. This doesn’t only apply to cripples. Take gay marriage, for example. The gay people who speak up in public and file lawsuits for the right to marry seem to always be in devoted, long term, supportive, committed relationships. But why can’t any of them be ass holes? I mean, ass holes of every shape and size that are heterosexual have the right to get married, right? They don’t have to reassure everyone that they are wholesome and upstanding before they can get a license. So why should gay people have to do it?

It’s like when the ACLU stands up for free speech for the Nazis. Free speech means free speech, even for the ass holes. So it goes when you let all the cripples in. It’s a guarantee, as with every other population, that you will let some ass holes in, too. It’s good to remind everybody of that every now and then. And I’m the perfect guy to do it.

The Federal Definition of a Broke Ass Cripple

I just read something pretty hilarious. It’s called "Supplemental Security Income Modernization Project: Final Report of the Experts." 

It has 21 authors. They were the “experts” assembled by the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration to make recommendations on how to “modernize” the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

SSI is the primary means of income for about 7 million broke ass American cripples. And I do mean broke ass. The average monthly SSI payment is $519.

And like I said, the report is quite a laugh riot in spots. But if I were you, I wouldn’t run out and buy a copy. You should just wait until "Supplemental Security Income Modernization Project: Final Report of the Experts" is adapted into a blockbuster movie. Because you have to machete your way through acres of tedium in order to find the best comic gems.  For example, there’s a big belly laugh in chapter III, which has the whacky title of “Needs-Based Issues-- Including the Elimination of In-Kind Support and Maintenance and Raising the Resources Limits While Streamlining the Exclusions.” The following uproarious phrase is found on page 70:  “A majority of the experts supported increasing the resources limits to $7,000 for an individual and $10,500 for a couple…”

I almost peed my pants when I read that! Because this report came out in 1992, when the SSI resource limit was $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple. That meant that was pretty much all the money someone getting SSI could have to their name without getting kicked off the program. Guess what the resource limit is today. If you guessed that it’s still $2,000 for an individual and $3,000 for a couple, you win our grand prize!

So not only do SSI cripples have to be broke ass, they have to be broke ass in 1992 dollars! And here’s an even funnier line from the report: “All of the 19 experts who expressed a view… support an increase in the current $30 payment limit applicable to certain residents of medical institutions.” Those “certain residents of medical institutions” are SSI cripples who live in places like nursing homes. They are the broke assiest of broke ass cripples. In 1992, they were only allowed to keep $30 a month from their SSI checks. The rest was turned over to the nursing home.  So guess how much “certain residents of medical institutions” get to keep today. While you think about it I’ll go pour myself another shot. Okay I’m back. And the answer is------------ (drum roll)------------------ $30 a month!

Here’s one more knee-slapper from the report’s cover letter, written by Arthur Flemming, the leader of the panel of experts and former Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.  Flemming acknowledged that “modernizing” SSI costs money. “We are, however, the richest nation in the world,” he wrote. He then cited a Congressional Budget Office study that said the after-tax income of the upper one percent of Americans increased by 70 per cent between 1977 and 1989 while the income of lower 20 per cent declined nine percent. Flemming wrote, “I believe that it is only fair to ask the upper one percent to share a small portion of their wealth with the poor.”

Isn’t that priceless? How preciously naïve!

Nothing has changed because the broke ass aren’t a lobbying force. Oh there are noble liberals who lobby on behalf of the broke ass. But it’s not the same. The broke ass need to speak for themselves. A name like Broke Ass Disabled Activists on Social Security makes for a good acronym (BADASS). But I hate to use that “d” word—disabled. It’s much too polite. Cripple has so much more punch. And besides, cripples aren’t the only ones who are broke ass. You don’t have to be crippled to be broke ass, but it sure gives you a good head start.

A more inclusive and thus powerful lobbying force would be something like the National Association of the Broke Ass. Some cripples like to point out that everyone should care about what happens to the cripples because anyone can become crippled at any moment. The same can be said of the broke ass.

It wouldn’t take much for the organized broke ass to shake things up. All they have to do is show up where politicians hang out.  There’s nothing politicians fear more than being confronted by hoards of the broke ass.  They'll take swift action. They’ll demand that the Department of Homeland Security build an alligator-infested moat around Capitol Hill.

Chasing politicians is fun and its good exercise. It beats sitting around waiting to be modernized.

The Quest

I spent the majority of my adolescence pissing into a mayonnaise jar.

There were two reasons for this. First, I was raised in the frugal “babushka” culture. The American babushkas, primarily of eastern European extraction, were the earliest recyclers, long before recycling was fashionable. Thus we reuse everything that can be reused until we reuse it to death. But we do it not for environmental but for economic reasons. So if after you eat all your mayonnaise you then put the perfectly good and sturdy jar to work as a urinal, you can then take the money you would have otherwise spent on a urinal and spend it on something else or, better yet, put it in the bank! That's the babushka way!

But the other reason I pissed into a mayonnaise jar was because even if I did have money to burn purchasing frivolous things like urinals, it was hard to find a person or place to purchase one from. They didn’t even sell them at drug stores. You almost had to turn to the black market. For some reason urinals were among the most unmentionable of the unmentionables. I don’t know why. They’re just cripple chamber pots.

A good pisser was hard to find. This is not the case today. Today’s cripples have it soft. If they need a urinal, they can find a wide variety of them on Amazon. And unlike many items on Amazon, none of the urinals are used.

This has done a lot to improve the quality of life of the modern cripple. We no longer have to devote a large portion of our time and energy embarking on the great pisser quest. Finding a pisser used to be like finding the holy grail. Once, not too long ago, my wife came home and proclaimed that she had a special gift for me. She proudly presented me a urinal she found at a drug store. She knew I’d be thrilled. It was still in the box and everything! It had that brand new urinal smell!

And a few years before that, still not long ago, I was extra excited on the day I was to visit the FDR memorial in Washington, D.C.  Maybe, I thought, just maybe, I might get lucky and find a pisser at the cripple-themed FDR memorial gift shop! Of course by the end of the day I came to the brutal realization of just how naïve I was to believe that the gift shop would stock souvenir pissers. FDR was the leader of the free world so he must have felt great pressure to stand up and piss like a man.

I admit that even I used to feel uneasy about gratuitous displays of pissers. There was this guy who always went around with his pisser hanging right there plain as day on the back of his wheelchair. He rolled around the state capitol with his pisser on the back of his chair, shaking hands with Senators. He’d put on a suit testify at committee hearings: “Because of this state program I am able live with dignity!” And there was his pisser. It made me cringe, but what a hypocrite I was. Would confirming that cripples had bodily functions really ruin our credibility with the Senators?

 I’m glad I got over it. 

Special Needs

When they talk about people who have “special needs,” just whom are they talking about? I think they think they’re talking about me.

Oh shit! If that’s the case then that officially makes me “needy.” That means I’m screwed because nobody likes needy people.

I don’t feel like they’re talking about me when they say “special needs.” I can’t think of anything I need that’s all that special. I need to eat, sleep and eliminate bodily waste. I need to breathe.  I need to get up out of bed every day and go do something. I need to wash the crud off of my body. I need to laugh. Nothing special about all that. I need to get laid. (Maybe that’s where the special part comes in, at least as far as cripples are concerned.)

When I think of people with special needs, I think of like vampires. Vampires need to drink virgin blood every day in order to stay “alive.” They can’t get by on burgers and fries like the rest of us. Vampires need to sleep in coffins during daylight hours. Now those are special needs.

Vampires are needy as hell! I know that vampires are a bad example of human neediness because they’re make-believe. And yes, I do acknowledge that there are real live humans who do indeed have very special, very extraordinary needs that place a heavy burden on the rest of society. The most obvious example is Trump. There’s one needy sonuvabitch for you. That guy needs a constant, endless flow of money. He needs money like the rest of us need oxygen. He thinks he’ll die if he doesn’t get more money. No matter how much money he has today, he needs to have more tomorrow. His need for money is far beyond special. It’s grotesque.

Unfortunately, Trump is not make-believe. And he’s not the only person with this type of special need. And almost all of those with this terrible affliction are verts (which is short for verticals, which is slang for people who walk). But when someone says “special needs,” they’re never talking about verts. They’re always talking about cripples.

Nobody wants to be perceived as needy because nobody likes needy people. We all act like we love the needy but we don’t. The only people who like hanging around needy people are heavy duty codependent types. I bet if somebody took a survey to determine the leading reasons why people get dumped by their lovers, at the top of the list would be neediness. “He/she was just tooooo needy.”

That’s the way it works. Don’t get too needy or you’ll get dumped.

One Last Laugh

I’ve found a new way to amuse myself, which, after all, is what life is all about.

First, I picture some anthropologists about a thousand years from now discovering my crippled skeleton. That makes me chuckle. My skeleton will be a keeper for them because they’ll know right away it belonged to a cripple.  It bears the ravages of sitting on my ass all day. It’s twisted and bent. It’s contracted up fetal. The bones are soupy soft. Sitting takes a toll. If God intended for humans to sit on our asses all day, she would have made us all Congressmen. But my body either sits in a wheelchair (or on a crapper) or lies in bed. Every day I abuse my body by making it get out of bed.

Finding a skeleton like mine is the kind of thing that gives anthropologists a great big boner. They’ll construct a whole theory about who I was and what became of me. And they’ll present me and their theory at some hot shot anthropology conference.

And picturing that really cracks me up. Because I’m a cripple they’ll probably assume all kinds of things about me. They’ll conclude that I couldn’t keep up with my tribe and so I was abandoned. They’ll probably see evidence of the time I broke my femur. What will they surmise? Here’s what really happened: I was acting like a drunken smart ass. I was in college. We were drinking in our favorite dump bar. The bathroom was inaccessible so I pissed in the alley. I forgot to refasten my wheelchair seat belt. A friend gave me a ride back to my dorm in my cripple van. I kept making fun of her driving. She hit the brakes so she could pull over and tell me to get the hell out. I somersaulted out of my wheelchair and broke my femur.

What are the odds the anthropologist will get that one right? They’ll probably also assume that I once lived in public housing for cripples. That’s correct. But will they thus conclude that I hosted a wild pagan baby shower? A friend was pregnant. Her pagan friends wanted to have a coed baby shower in a location accessible for her crippled friends. So we used my apartment. It was a raucous night of unwrapping baby-themed gifts, drinking, dancing and smoking weed. I’m lucky we didn’t get raided. Hosting a wild pagan baby shower probably would be grounds for eviction from public housing. You can get kicked out of public housing for farting too loud.

I don’t think the anthropologist will deduce all that just from looking at my crippled bones either. So I really want to be a fly on the wall at that conference and watch them get my back story all wrong. It’ll be good for one last laugh.

Making that happen won’t be easy.  It will require having my head cut off and frozen. And then  my head will have to be thawed out and reanimated and smuggled into the hot shot anthropology conference by a future generation of sympathetic smart asses. And how will the anthropologists explain why their prize crippled skeleton has no skull? I can’t wait to hear what kind of crazy shit they concoct!

This is a long way to go for one last laugh. Pulling it off is a long shot. But it gives me something to look forward to.

The Day I Quit Walking Day

It’s like when you don’t know your dog’s birthday so you just pick a day and declare that day to be your dog’s birthday and have a party. You stick a birthday candle in a hunk of raw hamburger and give it to your dog.

So I declare February 28 to be The Day I Quit Walking Day. Why not? It’s as good of a day as any to have a party. I wish I would have thought to note the date on the actual day I quit walking. But I didn’t think much of it at the time. It wasn’t premeditated or anything. I just decided one day that trying to walk was a pain in the ass and I wasn’t going to bother anymore.

It’s coming up on 40 years now. I was a teenager at the state-operated boarding school for cripples. My leg braces were locked at the knee so I sat in my wheelchair with my legs sticking straight out. The therapist rocked me up to a standing position in the parallel bars. I walked like Frankenstein in cement boots dragging a ball and chain. I leaned way to one side, thrusted the opposite leg forward a few inches. I took two steps forward like that, two steps back. That's all I could do. I sat down. The end.

Don’t believe what they say in those feature stories you see when a linebacker becomes a cripple. Walking isn’t just a matter of desire, determination and discipline . If it was, therapists would take a whole different approach during rehab. It would be more like boot camp. “Get up off your lazy ass and walk, cripple! LEFT RIGHT HUT HUT LEFT RIGHT! C'mon! Move it! You’re a disgrace!”

I also didn’t like how therapists referred to walking as “ambulation.” Why couldn’t they just call it walking? “It’s time to ambulate!” I think that word bothered me because I was raised Catholic and ambulation sounded like something a priest would tell me I should never ever do. “Bless me father for I have sinned. This morning I ambulated all over my bedroom.”

I told the therapist that was it. No more walking for me. And it was a big load lifted. I could spend that time and energy doing something more fruitful and fun. They sent me to see the head therapist, who implored me to never give up trying to walk. But what was the point? Two steps forward, two steps back. It felt good for me to tell walking to fuck off! “You can’t fire me! I quit!”

While I’m at it, I also need to declare a The Last Day I Used the Stand-up Table Day. That was another thing the therapists did. They laid me on the stand-up table, which was this padded, horizontal pallet. They strapped me in good and tight across the knees and across the chest and all over and then they turned a crank until the stand-up table was vertical and, consequently, so was I. And there I “stood.” I felt like I was bound to a tree. I kept waiting for the therapist to place an apple on my head and shoot it off with a bow and arrow.  I felt like a magician’s assistant, backed against the wall and waiting nervously for the magician to fling knives that whiz past my ears. I felt like a scarecrow.

They discontinued that therapy for me without telling me. I don’t know why. I never asked. Just shut up and be grateful. I only wish they would have told me after my final crank back to Horizontalville that they were officially giving up on the stand-up table. I probably would have remembered the date of this great milestone.

Be it resolved that henceforth, February 27 shall be The Last Day I Used the Stand-up Table Day. That way for two days straight I can party myself silly.

The True Story of the Almost-Was Cripple Colony on the Antarctic

 

There was a time only about 20 years ago when it was very dangerous for cripples in motorized wheelchair to venture out of the house. Danger lurked around every turn. You literally took your life in your hands.

 

Back in those days,  new horror stories surfaced every week about runaway wheelchairs that were suddenly kicking into gear and taking their screaming occupants on unsolicited roller coaster rides. A guy who sold wheelchairs said to me, in a foreboding tone of voice, “One guy went right over a cliff!” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that! Gone!”

 

An image burst open in my brain of a cripple in a motorized wheelchair sailing over the Grand Canyon like a motorcycle jumper, like a crippled hang glider without a hang glider, like Thelma and Louise. I resolved that if I ever went to see the Grand Canyon, I’d be sure to wear a parachute.

 

Still I wondered if these stories were more of those bullshit cripple myths, where everyone’s heard of the cripple in the story but nobody’s ever met him.  And I never knew anybody who knew anybody who knew anybody who knew anybody whose wheelchair went berserk like that.

 

But even the Food and Drug Administration was hearing the stories. There were no reported deaths but there were stories of chairs taking off over curbs and off piers. And sometimes it happened when an emergency vehicle like a police car or ambulance was in the vicinity.

 

Holy shit! Imagine that! You’re a happy fishing cripple just whistling the day away. An ambulance goes by somewhere in the distance and the next thing you know, you’re waist deep in the lagoon. Now what do you do? Well, whatever you do, don’t call an ambulance!

 

Now I’m not a religious man but if my chair started spinning and bucking and popping wheelies and barreling into traffic, I’d call a priest. Screw the FDA. Have a priest exorcize the damn thing, waving an urn of burning incense over it while reciting Latin. Or maybe I’d call NASA. Because the other culprit I’d suspect would be smart ass Martians, looking down from their hovering saucers and laughing their asses off as they zap cripples with a special ray that make wheelchairs dance a crazy Mambo.

 

The FDA inspected a bunch of wheelchair and determined that what caused them to go haywire was electromagnetic interference (EMI), emitted not just from certain two-way radios like those in ambulances but also from cell phones. Cell phones! And so the FDA made manufacturers put a big yellow warning sticker on motorized wheelchairs that said something like CAUTION: STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM AMBULANCES AND CELL PHONES.

 

I remember those stickers. But I guess the problem was fixed by installing a shield on new chairs that protects against EMI. So the sticker is now gone which is damn good thing. What if cripples had to avoid cell phones today? We’d all have to move to the Antarctic.