Preparing Crippled Teens for the Future

I recently received a distinct honor. I was asked to make a presentation at Disabled Teen Mentoring Day.

DTMD is a very important annual event because it’s all about the future. Teenage criplets come from far and wide to learn from old farts like me how to make the most of opportunities and successfully plan for their futures. They hear speakers and attend workshops and do all kinds of networking.

So what would the title of my presentation be? I thought about it long and hard because I wanted to have a strong impact on these impressionable young minds. I wanted to equip them with the most essential tools they will need to navigate through America as crippled adults in the next decade.

My first idea was to do a presentation entitled, “How to Write a Winning Resume.” Because after all, the job market is tough enough when you’re not crippled. Cripples are at a competitive disadvantage so it’s extra important for their resumes to stand out from all the other applicants.

This sounded like a great idea to me so I set about putting my presentation together. I was really excited. But then I thought about all the slimy republicans that are in charge of so many things these days. Those guys really hate cripples. They won’t admit it to anyone, especially not to themselves, but they really do.

I realized that my resume writing idea was fatally flawed because it was based on the dubious premise that cripples will even be able to get jobs after these neo-dirtbags have had a few years devour up the economy even more.

So then I thought I’d serve these crippled teens better by preparing them for a life of living on Social Security in government-subsidized, low-income public housing. I thought maybe my presentation should be called, “How to Keep Your Sanity While Languishing on a 15-year Waiting List for Government-Subsidized, Low-Income Public Housing." Tip #1: Drink a lot of whiskey. Tip 2: Take up an extremely time-consuming hobby, such as building an exact replica of the Taj Mahal out of toothpicks, and before you know it 15 years will have gone by. Tip #3: Drink a lot of whiskey.

Or maybe I should share some frugal recipes for people using food stamps. Sautéed spam? Spam fricassee? Spam flambé? Blackened spam? Spam-- it's the poor man's meatloaf.

But then I thought about all the anal warts that are in charge of so many things these days. And I realized this idea was also fatally flawed because it was based on the dubious premise that there will be anything resembling Social Security, food stamps or government-subsidized, low-income public housing in the near future.

So now I’m thinking the title of my presentation will be, “Living Under a Bridge: How to Make it Accessible for You!”




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An Inspiring Message from Smart Ass Cripple

When I was a wee criplet, I dared to dream big. I didn’t let the fact that I was crippled temper my lust for life.

When I look back on it, I can see how blissfully naïve I was. Cripples didn’t amount to much back then. I could very well have been setting myself up for devastating heartbreak with my fancy ambitions but I didn’t care! Damn the torpedoes! I was brash enough to imagine myself accomplishing extraordinary cripple feats, like going to school and maybe even graduating.

And maybe from there I would go on to enroll in a prestigious institution of high education that no cripple had ever attended before, like my local community college. And after that, who knows, I might get a job and maybe even an exotic job like working at the DMV. And if all the planets in the solar system were to somehow align themselves in precisely the right order, thus bestowing upon me and me alone all the good fortune of the universe, I might even get paid for doing that job. And maybe my paycheck would be enough for me to pay the weekly rent on a swanky furnished sleeping room with a luxurious bathroom right down the hall. And I would have plenty of leisure time, which I would spend watching wrestling and Andy Griffith. I’d be happy as a pig in shit and the envy of cripples worldwide

It was sheer folly for the cripples of my generation to envision themselves doing any of these things, except for the part about watching wrestling and Andy Griffith. But I knew I had the inner fortitude it would take to pull it off. I had the stuff of pioneers.

And so I say unto all ye cripples of today, fuck what everybody else says! Always follow your heart. Don’t be afraid strive for the routine, to thirst for the bland and to aspire to the innocuous. It’s all within your reach!




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Living in a Post-Give-a-Shit Society

Today we all officially live in a post-give-a-shit society. It is fashionable not to give a shit. Giving a shit is uncool. Giving a shit is soooooooooo 2016.

Not giving a shit is very liberating. When you finally make a vow to no longer give a shit, from that moment forward you are responsible for and answerable to no one but yourself.

Okay maybe I’m generalizing a little too much here. Maybe it’s unfair to make a blanket statement asserting that every human on earth doesn’t give a shit. I’ll grant you that there are still a few people who give a little bit of a shit every now and then, as long as it’s not too difficult and doesn’t require much sacrifice on their part. We call these people Democrats.

But they are a dying breed because they don’t realize that giving a shit is the enemy of progress. Giving a shit is for losers. There are countless stories of powerful men in every era of American history who only reached the heights they reached because they didn’t give a shit. Like for instance, what about Henry Ford? Do you think Henry Ford gave a shit? Who knows, but odds are he probably didn’t or it’s not likely that he would have become Henry Ford, right? Or what about Richard Nixon? Now there was a guy who didn’t give a shit.

A lot of people are still afraid to publicly admit that they don’t give a shit. They want to give the impression that they still really do give a shit. This is a whole lot easier to pull off if you’re rich. Because rich people can hire others to do all the piddly little stuff they don’t want to do. So if you’re rich, you can hire someone to give a shit for you. That’s what charities are for. You can give a bunch of money to a charity to prove that you give a shit and then you don’t have to give a shit anymore.

It’s hard not to give a shit. It takes great strength of conviction. There is so much societal pressure to give a shit. People who don’t give a shit are vilified. They’re made to look like monsters.

But I think the tide has irreversibly changed. Not giving a shit is the unstoppable wave of the future. I believe that someday we’ll all look back on the time we’re living in now as the golden age of not giving a shit.



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When the Uncrippled Majority Finally Snaps

I fear that someday the uncrippled majority will get fed up and snap. One of them will say aloud, “Fuck cripples! I’m sick of catering to them!” And millions of others will feel awash in that sense of relief that occurs when someone says something you’ve been feeling but were afraid to express. And they will take it as permission to declare themselves similarly. And that will open the floodgates for a torrent of cripple backlash.

This moment of fed-upness is likely to occur at an airport. Tensions are already high at airports. When I’m in the plane pre-boarding line, I see resentment in the eyes of many of the corralled verts (which is short for verticals, which is slang for people who can walk.) Their look says, “How come he gets to get on the plane before me? So what if he’s had it rough. I’ve had it rough, too. My father was a drunk.” So they think the announcement should be amended to say, “Ladies and gentleman, first we will pre-board passengers with special needs and those whose fathers were drunks.” But if that was allowed to happen, then the next guy will say, “Hey, what about me? I’ve had it rough, too. I was bullied in middle school.” So the announcement would be amended yet again and pretty soon we’ve defeated the purpose of pre-boarding.

A lot of verts also look like they’re seethingly jealous when an airport worker wearing a vest brings a standing cripple a wheelchair and then pushes that cripple all over the terminal. And it makes me think that maybe cripples who are out to shatter every stigma associated with using a wheelchair need to ease up a little. Because I think the main thing stopping these verts from demanding airport wheelchair rides is that they think it’s uncool to be seen sitting in a wheelchair. So maybe stigma ain’t all bad. Maybe it doesn’t always work against us.

But here’s something that would cause the uncrippled majority to snap for sure. What if there was a pre-unboarding? What if we they were expected to wait patiently while cripples get off the plane before them the same way we expect them to wait patiently while cripples get on the plane before them? “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened for about 20 or 30 minutes while an airport worker wearing a vest hauls the cripples off the plane first.” Sheeeeeeeeeeit! No way that’s gonna happen. As soon as that hatch door opens, verts hustle off that plane like somebody set off tear gas. That poor airport worker wearing a vest would get trampled.




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Rough Day

The guy sitting at a table in the coffee shop looks like he had a really rough day. I can tell by the way he’s looking at me. He’s smiling at me, but he also looks like he’s about to cry. It’s a humble smile of gratitude. I’m expecting that any second now he’ll raise his paper cup and salute me with a silent toast.

I don’t know the guy. But I assume the reason he appears to feel indebted to me is because I came along at precisely the right time. Something must've happened to him today that had him wallowing in self-pity, which is a downright un-American thing to be doing. And then I rolled in and saved him. I, with my mere crippled presence, reminded him that no matter how rough his day was, he’ll never have it as rough as some people do so all in all he should thank his lucky stars.

I feel creepy when I think people are looking at me that way. But I don’t blame the guy. I do the same thing, even though I know it’s bull shit. Everybody does it. Even cripples. It’s one of the ways humans find the strength to carry on. When I have an exceptionally rough day, I remember stories I’ve heard about people who commit suicide by throwing themselves in front of oncoming commuter trains. And then I think about the people whose job it is to clean that shit up. And I say to myself, “Well damn, at least I don’t have to scrape human entrails off a railroad track on this or any other day.” And I tell myself to stop whining.

The people who have to clean up big gruesome messes like that all deserve medals as far as I’m concerned. They should have an annual awards banquet for them, like the Oscars. Red carpet. Everyone’s all glittered up. The nominees are announced, each one with a tragic and gruesome clean up tale involving a fire, an earthquake, a moose stampede. “And the winner is—.“ But really they all deserve medals, don't they? Everyone should at least receive a certificate of recognition.

I think the guy in the coffee shop is picturing an annual awards banquet for cripples like me. I bet I know what happened to him today to make his day so rough that he could only find solace in comparing his lot to mine. I bet somebody jumped in front of an oncoming commuter train and he had to clean it up.





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Cripples with Power

What if I was a judge? Don’t panic, it’s not likely to happen any time soon. I haven’t even been to law school or anything. But then again, considering some of the idiots who become judges, you never know.

But I bitch a lot about injustice so what if I could do something about it by being a judge? I’d like to think that I would develop a reputation as a wise, fair and benevolent arbiter of justice. But if I was a judge, it’s more likely that I would be an asshole, through no fault of my own. Because places of power, like being a judge, aren’t built for cripples like me, because people don’t associate cripples like me with being in places of power. So that would put me under tremendous pressure to overcompensate to prove I belonged.

Judges in courtrooms are always on high so they can look down on the rest of us. Those are the people everybody respects the most—the ones who look down on us. But in order for me to get up to my judge’s perch in my wheelchair, someone would have to build me a crazy, winding ramp. The bailiff says “all rise” and I make my entrance up the crazy, winding ramp and I already look like a doofus. But I’d better not hear so much as a snicker out of anybody because I’m a judge, goddammit, and my courtroom is a dictatorship with me in charge! If anyone says “boo” I can slap their asses with contempt of court. And I will! Just try me!

Judges always also sit behind desks that are pointlessly enormous. I don’t know why their desks are so enormous. It’s not like they do anything with those desks except bang gavels on them. One of those folding television trays would work just fine as a desk for a judge, but a pointlessly enormous desk is much more intimidating. And those are the people everybody respects the most—the ones who intimidate us.

So if I was a judge, I’d look like a dork sitting behind that enormous desk in my wheelchair because the desk would be way too high. It would come up to about my eyes and I’d barely be able to see over the top and once again everyone would be tempted to snicker. So I’d have to have a much lower and smaller desk that wouldn’t be nearly as intimidating and people would still snicker. I couldn’t win.

The more you don’t fit in the more you overcompensate. So in order to command respect as an authority figure, I’d probably become a hard-ass judge, sentencing jaywalkers to the guillotine. That’s what happens when you give a cripple like me a little power.



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