The Robin Hood of Commodes

I’m sitting in my cubicle in the emergency room waiting to be seen. Outside in the corridor is a commode. Beautiful commode. It looks shiny and new, probably yet to be Christened. I begin to fantasize.

Because I have a crippled buddy who would kill to have that commode right now. I shall give him an alias, so as not to violate the privacy of his bathroom habits. I’ll call him Bing Crosby.

Bing Crosby entered a phrase of life that every cripple enters sooner or later. One day you slither onto the crapper (or however it is you transfer). And then you try to slither back off but you can’t. You try and try but you just can’t. Your ability to safely and successfully slither is suddenly and permanently gone.

So now what do you do? Should you call one of those few people in your inner sanctum that you can comfortably summon in the event you get stuck on the crapper? Should you call the fire department? Should you keep slithering?

Regardless of the exit strategy you ultimately employ, you find yourself steeped in a harsh reality that you must rethink the way you take a crap. In Bing Crosby’s case, he knew it was time to hire assistants to spot and aid him as he slithered. He also wanted to reduce his amount of slithering. They key to achieving that goal was to acquire a commode on wheels. That way he could slither directly onto the commode from bed, roll from bed to crapper to shower and back again, reducing the need to slither by 50 percent.

Ah but acquiring a commode is not that easy. In a perfect would, there would be commode fairies that would appear in an instant to grant our wishes. But in this brutal world, commodes cost money. Cripples like Bing Crosby, who don’t have disposable income to blow on stuff like commodes, might be able to get Medicare to pay for 80 percent of it. I suppose having 80 percent of a commode could suffice, as long as that 80 percent includes the seat, legs and wheels.

But Medicare’s gonna want a prescription from a doctor plus a whole lot of paperwork. And then there’s the time spent waiting for approval or denial and the appeal.

You can get a commode in a flash from Amazon. You don’t need no stinkin’ prescription. They’ll sell a commode to anybody, no questions asked. But you gotta pay in full. No 80/20 split. The commode Bing Crosby has his eye on costs $250.

Bing Crosby is trying to get a big charity that says it takes care of cripples like him to buy him a commode. They say they’ll pay for the whole thing, but they still require a prescription and a whole lot of paperwork. Bing Crosby is a month into the process, and still no thumbs up on the commode. If any of Bing Crosby’s kitchen chairs had wheels on them, he’d probably say fuck it and cut a hole in the seat and stick a bucket underneath.

So as I’m looking at that gorgeous, alluring commode, I’m fantasizing. I ought just swipe the damn thing and take it right to him. Wrap it up with a ribbon and bow. To get past the ER security guard, I’d have to pose as a commode repairman or maybe say I’m with the FDA and there’s been a recall. Sitting on this commode makes your ass break out in hives.

I’m sure there are tens of thousands of cripples in commode limbo, like Bing Crosby. I should organize a band of bandits for justice who steal commodes from the rich, like big honkin’ corporate hospitals and nursing homes and medical supply companies, and give them to the poor.

I’d be the Robin Hood of commodes. Just call our toll-free number anytime. Free next-day delivery guaranteed. And you don’t need a goddam prescription.

By the way, the ER trip was a false alarm. I'm fine. Thanks for asking.


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Warning: Here Comes Yet Another Edition of Ask Smart Ass Cripple

Dear Smart Ass Cripple,

I need your help. I’m looking for a recipe for homemade gruel. I figured if anyone would have one, it would be you.

I am a billionaire hedge fund manager who just purchased a financially-distressed chain of orphanages for pennies on the dollar. But the bad news is, I now must find a way to feed thousands of orphans in the most cost-effective manner.

I really hope you have the solution!

Sincerely,
Bill, as in Billionaire


Dear Bill,

You are correct to assume that I might well know how to whip up a steaming batch o’ gruel. After all, I spent five years of my adolescence as an inmate in a state-operated boarding school for cripples, which I affectionately refer to as the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (SHIT). Thus, gruel was a common staple of the diet served the inmates.
But remember, I was not involved in the making of the gruel. All I did was try my best not to eat it.

However, your inquiry inspired me to try to track down the infamous SHIT gruel master, whose name was Tex. Much to my surprise and delight, I found him alive and well and living a quiet retirement in his home state of New Mexico. (Don’t ask me why they called him Tex. I guess it sounds better than New Mex.)

When I asked if he would be so kind as to share his secret recipe for homemade gruel, he laughed. Tex said making truly authentic gruel requires exotic ingredients that are very hard to find, such as the snot of a syphilitic yak, which is only available on the black market.

Because SHIT was a state institution, Tex said the food budget was way too small for him to able to make genuine gruel. He confessed that what came up on our food trays was powdered, instant gruel. Just add lukewarm tap water, stir and serve.

I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful, Bill. Just tell the orphans to eat cake.


Dearest SAC,

My mother posed a question to me as a child that perplexes me to this day. She said , “If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?” I have tried in vain to come up with an answer and can only surmise that this must be a rhetorical question. What do you think?

Sadly yours,
Zoe Z. Zola




Dear Zoe,

Parents have been tormenting their children with this question for generations. It’s their subtle way of demonstrating their advanced intelligence. They take sadistic delight in observing our befuddlement

But you can tell your mom that you finally have the answer to her question:

Nowhere.

Because the truth is, it’s impossible to pick a pickled pepper. Pickling is a manmade process that involves fermentation in brine or immersion in vinegar. No pepper is born pickled. It must be picked BEFORE it can be pickled! The best Peter Piper could have possibly done was pick a peck of regular peppers and then pickled them.

Tell this to your mother and watch the smug smirk of superiority disappear from her face. She’ll realize you are no longer a child and have become, in fact, a force to be reckoned with.

This legendary tongue-twister ought to be abolished in the name of preventing cruelty to children. Or at the very least, it should be updated to, “Peter Piper pooped a peck of pickled peppers.” This would imply that Peter Piper picked a peck of peppers, pickled them, ate them and then pooped them out. I fully acknowledge that this scenario is highly improbable, but at least it’s possible. And it still retains its enduring, alliterative charm.




Dear Mr. Smart Ass,

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?

Lyrically yours,

Bobby Z


Dear Bobby Z,

The answer, my friend, is twelve.




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Muscular Dystrophy Mike

I’m sure glad that that which makes me crippled isn’t contagious. Life would sure suck if it was.

That which makes me crippled would then become the indelibly central feature of my name and identity. I’d be like Typhoid Mary.

That which makes me crippled is called spinal muscular atrophy, I think. I don’t really know or care. It is what it is. When I was a kid everybody called it muscular dystrophy. So if I was contagious, I’d be known as Muscular Dystrophy Mike. That has a catchy, alliterative ring to it. It’s much easier to remember than Spinal Muscular Atrophy Mike. And this would be vitally important to remember, if I was contagious, because permanently attaching that which makes me crippled to my name would serve as a warning to innocent citizens everywhere to stay away from me, lest they suffer my fate.

If I was contagious, I trust that there are many liberal people who would stand up in defense of my human dignity. They would demand that I be referred to in “people first” language. Put the name of the person before the name of the diagnosis and call me Mike Who Happens to Have Muscular Dystrophy, so as to emphasize the person first. I mean, contagious people are more than just contagious. They have hopes, dreams and aspirations, just like the uncontagious. They should be judged by the content of their character, not by their potential to spread lethal pathogens.

Look at poor Typhoid Mary. What does anyone remember about her other than she gave a bunch of people typhoid as was quarantined for it? For all we know, she might have been a great cello player. She might have been able to communicate telepathically with whales. We don’t know and that’s my point. As soon as someone is hung with the label of contagious, we all rush to demonize them.

Imagine if everything that makes cripples crippled was contagious. Beside Muscular Dystrophy Mike, there would also be Down Syndrome Debbie, Bipolar Bob, Alzheimer’s Annie and Lou Gehrig's Disease Lou. The sanitariums would be teeming.

But through the grace of God, none of us are contagious. But that’s no guarantee we won’t be quarantined anyway. People who are schizophrenic aren’t contagious but they’re locked up in asylums all the time. A lot of people who are crippled for the same reason I am get locked up in nursing homes. It’s usually because they can’t wipe their own asses and they can’t afford to hire someone to do it for them. I guess that freaks people out as much as if we were contagious.


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Bathroom Standoff

Sometimes the double wide cripple stalls in public bathrooms are occupied by a homeless person. The same is true of those double wide outdoor cripple port-a-potties.

And I get super frustrated because I know that the homeless person is probably camped out in there for the long term. And my first instinct is to bang on the door and pull rank. “Come outta there! I gotta pee and you’re occupying my space! Cripple trumps homeless, dammit!” But then my second instinct is to feel ashamed of having such a shitty first instinct. If it was some douchebag businessman hogging up the cripple stall, I’d gladly bang the door down. But that homeless person in there, like everyone else, is just looking for a place that’s warm and safe and comfortable. And the cripple accessible stall or port-a-pot may be their best option, especially for free.

And that’s when I get super frustrated because the fact remains that I still gotta pee. And I can’t hold it in until we address all the political inequities that created this situation in the first place.

So what do I do? I don’t want to involve the authorities because I know how they’ll react. If I press the issue, they’ll resort to evicting the homeless person and all their possessions. But that plays right into the hands of the oppressor. He wants us to blame each other for impeding our progress. But he’s the one who caused this conflict. That homeless person isn’t camped out in there just because they feel like fucking with cripples’ heads today. But where else are they gonna go? If the oppressor gave a shit, he shouldn’t have a hard time creating spaces that are more safe and comfortable than a putrid port-a-potty.

The long term solution of the authorities is often to lock the accessible stalls and port-a-potties so that neither cripples nor homeless people can use them. That way, the oppressor gets to fuck over two for the price of one. I was strolling through the National Mall in Washington, D.C. one day a few years back and I felt a sudden urge to pee. There was a line of about 50 port-a-potties that were placed there precisely for occasions like this, but the four or five cripple accessible ones were all padlocked shut! I had to go find a fucking Starbucks!

A crippled buddy of mine told me he recently landed at JFK airport and he really had to pee. But all the cripple stalls were locked! Fortunately for him, he can sort of stand and walk enough to use a standard stall.

So what do I do when I find myself in this kind of bathroom standoff with a homeless person? Well, if it’s a public bathroom, I go use a wall urinal. I realize that when I do this, I’m copping out by asserting my male privilege. I know I’m not doing anything to confront the oppressor and address the root cause of the problem. But when you gotta pee you gotta pee.



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Drooling Barbies

In 2017, the Mattel Toy Company committed a heinous act of cripple genocide.

Twenty years earlier, the company started making a Barbie doll friend that used a wheelchair. They gave her the cornball name of Share a Smile Becky, but at least it was something.

But then some kids started complaining that Becky’s wheelchair was too wide to fit through the doorways of Barbie’s fucking Dreamhouse. And Becky’s long hair often got tangled in her wheels.

So how did Mattel ultimately respond? They stopped manufacturing Becky. Just like that—poof—she was gone! So long! Adios!

Whatever executive made that decision must’ve derived a certain sadistic pleasure from it because it didn’t have to be that way. Mattel could’ve started making Becky as upright and bipedal as all the other Barbies and pronounced her cured. But no, they had to go and kill her off. They had to make an example out of her. It delivered a harsh message to all the ungrateful spoiled brats about what happens when you complain too much.

Okay I guess it wasn’t technically genocide because Mattel allowed all the Becky dolls already in circulation to continue to exist. They didn’t send their stormtroopers door-to-door ransacking little girls’ bedrooms, confiscating their Becky dolls and hurling them into a bonfire. They were content to let Becky dolls become extinct by attrition.

But now Mattel says that in the fall they will roll out not just one but two new crippled dolls. One is in a wheelchair and one has a removable prosthetic leg. Mattel says it’s their way of reflecting the full spectrum of human diversity.

So I suppose they think that makes up for everything, huh? We’re all just supposed to forgive and forget what they did to our crippled sister Becky.

But I say hell no! Don’t let them off the hook. Now is the time to bitch louder than ever!

If Mattel wants to represent the full spectrum of human diversity, they can’t just plop a doll in a wheelchair or give one half a leg and say they’ve got cripples covered. There’s a full spectrum of human diversity among cripples too.

Mattel ought to be making an extensive line of crippled dolls. What about a blind Barbie? A deaf Barbie? A Barbie with hemophilia?

A dwarf Barbie? A Barbie with a trach in her throat? A Barbie with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder who’s constantly washing her hands? An autistic Barbie? How about a Barbie that drools? I know the technology exists to make that doll. When I was a kid there was a doll that cried real tears. All you had to do to make tears was remove the hatch on the back of the baby’s skull and fill the chamber with water. The same principal can be applied here, except you fill the chamber with spit.



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A Self-Care Coma

Some people are big advocates for making video games more accessible for cripples. I’m afraid they will succeed.

I know it’s a sour grapes thing. It’s true that it’s hard or impossible to push all those video game buttons and flip all those switches if you don’t have much hand strength or dexterity or if you don’t have hands at all. But so what. That’s good. Video games are a colossal waste of time. You fritter away half your adult life striving to reach the 57th level of Intergalactic Dragon Quest and when you do what have you gotten out of it, besides carpal tunnel?

Or at least that’s what I tell myself. But I think the real reason I’m glad video games are inaccessible is because if they were accessible I’d be tempted to play. And once I get started I might not ever stop. I’ll get addicted fast. I know how damn competitive I am. After emerging from a stupor after a weeklong binge, I’ll hate myself and vow to seek help. Then I’ll go do it again.

I feel the same way about hammocks. Maybe one of my brawnier pit crew members could lift me into a hammock. But those things sink down so low that it would take the Army Corps of Engineers to lift me back out. So I’m glad hammocks are inaccessible because those things look so goddam comfy that if I ever laid in one I might never get up.

I avoid video games for the same reason I passed up many opportunities to take acid in college. I was deathly afraid I’d enjoy it too much. And once I start really enjoying myself, look out! There could be no turning back.

That’s why I never take long vacations. A few days of r&r is all I dare. I‘m also afraid of massages because self-care terrifies me. I have to partake of it in small, precisely measured doses or I could easily slip into a self-care coma and never snap out of it. I could become catatonic. The older I become, the more the risk of that happening increases.

I’m also fortunate that I can’t get myself out of bed in the morning without assistance. One of my pit crew members must physically evict from my bed. If things were otherwise, I don’t think I would ever get myself up. Bed is too damn warm and cozy.

It’s probably also good that I don’t have a lot of money. If nothing else, that would get me out of bed sooner or later. Only rich people can afford to stay in bed every day.



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Millie the Millipede and Her Stages of Grief

Once upon a time there was a millipede named Millie. Millie was probably the happiest little millipede that ever was. She really enjoyed having a thousand legs. And she really made the most of it! Millie entertained all her fellow millipedes with her amazing feats of agility. Millie could play doubles tennis while simultaneously playing a dozen pianos and ukuleles, juggling fifty balls and dancing an entire chorus line. She was well known in millipede circles as the supreme queen of multitasking.

But then one dark day something terrible happened. Millie was injured when a giant foot came down from heaven and nearly squished her. The foot delivered a glancing blow but nevertheless it tore off 26 of Millie’s legs. Millie was devastated. Not only did this terrible freak accident extremely hamper her mobility and agility, it plunged her into a deep identity crisis. Could she still proudly call herself a millipede if she only had 974 legs? Millie felt like a freak.

Some of other millipedes teased her and called her names, like Stumpy. Others took pity on her. They saw her as an innocent victim of a random accident that could easily befall any of them. There but for the grace of God go them. But some of the more maniacally religious millipedes shunned Millie. They didn’t believe in random accidents. God often sent giant feet crashing down from heaven to express his displeasure with millipedes, sometimes in thundering stampedes. Since God doesn’t make mistakes, those squished or maimed by giant feet obviously did something evil to incur his divine wrath.

After losing 26 legs, Millie went through many stages of grief. First, there was depression. Millie drank excessively, sometimes as much as 125 bottles of whisky at once. Then she entered a buoyant stage of denial. She was highly motivated to prove to all the other millipedes and to herself that she was still just like them. She wasn’t going to let having 974 legs define her! So Millie got fitted with 26 tiny prosthetic legs. When Millie re-emerged in millipede society standing tall on her new prosthetics, other millipedes praised her for her bravery.

But deep down inside, Millie still felt discontent. Whenever she came home at night, she immediately shed her prosthetics, like she was shedding a clunky suit of armor. Millie preferred going au naturel like this, as she called it. Millie had learned to zip around effectively and efficiently by lying on a tiny skateboard, which she propelled with her 974 legs. Sure, when she went out in public on her skateboard, other millipedes with their full complement of legs strained their necks staring at her or trying not to stare. But Millie didn’t care. She was much more comfortable and mobile on her skateboard.

So Millie entered the final stage of grief. Sociologists refer to this euphorically liberating state of mind as the fuck you stage. From then on Millie bopped around town on her skateboard and without her prosthetics because that’s how she felt most comfortable and free. And if any other millipedes didn’t like it, Millie flipped them the finger, 974 times.

And Millie lived happily ever after.


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