A Fate Worse Than Being Fat

 

It seems that researchers have found that a  popular weight-loss drug may cause blindness.

 Normally, that kind of news would mean curtains for the company that manufactures the drug because it might make everybody freak out and stop buying that drug. But in this case, it might not be so bad.

Because you can be blind and still be cool. Or at least that’s how I think a lot of other people think. I mean, look at Stevie Wonder. Everybody thinks Stevie Wonder is cool. And yet everybody knows Stevie Wonder is blind.

I recently saw a jazz combo performing and one of the musicians was wearing sunglasses. It was indoors. And I couldn’t tell if the guy was wearing sunglasses because he was blind or because he was cool.

So, when someone does a cost/benefit analysis of becoming skinny but maybe becoming blind in the process, they might be more inclined to take the drug anyway and run the risk of going blind.

But if taking a popular weight-loss drug could cause somebody to be crippled like me, that would probably be a different story. It would be like those dumb shits who won’t get their kids vaccinated because they heard somewhere that vaccines cause autism. Even if that was true, these people are saying that they’d rather that their kids caught something like measles or whooping cough or the plague than maybe be autistic.

If taking the popular weight-loss drug might turn a person into a crippled old man in a motorized wheelchair like me, a lot of people probably wouldn’t take the risk anyway because they don’t think that anybody can be that kind of cripple and still be cool.

They would probably consider that to be a fate worse than being fat.

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Be Careful What You Wish For

 

I noticed that the new coffee shop down the street must’ve recently installed a ramp on their front door. That really sucks because now that it’s accessible, I feel obligated to go there,

My wife and I have been bitching at them for having a step on their entrance and no ramp. My wife is in a wheelchair too. And then they went and put in a ramp and they didn’t make us sue them or anything.

 So now I feel like a poster child for that old saying: “Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.”

It’s like my deaf friends who have told me about how they bitch about public events that don’t have sign language interpretation and/or captioning to make it accessible for people like them. And then sign language and/or captioning gets added and then they feel like they have to go because if deaf people don’t show up, the people who organize the event might stop doing sign language interpretation and/or captioning. So, they have to pick their battles. If there’s a Jehovah’s Witness church service, for example, that doesn’t have sign language interpretation and/or captioning, they might not want to bitch about it.

And so now I feel like if I don’t run over to that new coffee shop right away and give them my business, they might take the ramp away and that’ll be my fault. It’s pretty stupid for me to feel that way, don’t you think?  It just goes to show that even the cripples that  bitch the most still feel guilty about it deep down inside when we speak up for ourselves. We feel we have to make up for it somehow.

 Whatever it all means, I know for sure that if a Jehovah’s Witness temple opens up around here and it doesn’t have a ramp, I won’t say a word about it.

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I am the Proverbial Tortoise

 Whenever you see a professional sports team with a wimpy name, like the Marlins, that probably means that the name is an homage to an animal that’s indigenous to and synonymous with that area. If everybody did that, we’d have a sports team called the Chicago Pigeons. And our archrivals would be the New York Rats. (It’s true that we have plenty of rats of our own here in Chicago. But those New York rats look like they don’t mess around. If their rats took on our rats in a fight to the death, I’d put my money on the New York rats. But if their rats took on our pigeons, I’d put my money on our pigeons.)

In Chicago, sooner or later, everybody engages in pigeon chasing That’s what happens when you come across a flock of pigeons who are gathered on the ground pecking on bird seed or something. Something comes over you and you just start running full speed at the flock of pigeons because you know what will happen . The pigeons will fly away all at once and that’s really cool to experience. And the pigeons always wait until the last minute to take off. It’s like they have radar that tells them not to skedaddle until they see the whites of your eyes. Quite often, when driving the streets of Chicago, you’ll see a pigeon in the middle of the road. You’re closing in on it fast and it’s still in the middle of the road and it looks like there’s no way you’re going to be able to avoid splattering a pigeon. But at the very last instant the pigeon flies away and somehow manages to escape.

It used to be that whenever I saw a flock of pigeons bustling around on the ground, I’d drive my wheelchair right into it full blast. I still do, but when I drive full blast I’m a lot slower than I used to be. Because I’ve programmed my chair so that sometimes when I go full blast I feel like I’m dragging my ass. But I do that so won’t get jostled and discombobulated all to hell when I hit a bump. The downside is that when I charge full blast into a flock of pigeons, they just walk away. I’m moving so that they don’t even have to fly away.

I am the proverbial tortoise. But sometimes the moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race. So sometimes I get the last laugh.

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The Recognition of the Mainstream Culture

 

I must say that at first, I felt a joyous sense of historical vindication when I saw professional Cornhole being played on a national sports television network. This meant that the activity of tossing beanbags into holes for points was now being recognized as legitimate by the mainstream culture. And that meant that, by extension, cripples were also being recognized as legitimate by the mainstream culture.

Because there was a time when tossing a beanbag was something only cripples spent a lot of time doing. As a  criplet, I tossed a lot of beanbags into holes on boards, like Cornhole, or into garbage cans or whatever. I feel stupid now that I thought it was kind of fun at the time, when, in fact, it was a useless activity. It seemed destined to always be a resoundingly unmarketable skill, no matter how zealously I developed it. It was indicative of the low expectations placed on cripples.

I never dreamed that I’d see the day when tossing beanbags would be looked upon as cool enough to be covered by a national sports television network. I never dreamed that if I played my cards right, I might someday land a million-dollar beanbag endorsement deal.  I never dreamed that tossing beanbags might someday make me a chick magnet.

But then I noticed that none of the people playing Cornhole on television were crippled.  So I wondered if this was really just a matter of cultural appropriation. Because there’s a thin line between cultural appropriation and being recognized as legitimate by mainstream culture. Cultural appropriation is when the mainstream culture steals something that someone else created and pretends that they are the ones who thought it up. Why do we need the recognition of mainstream culture to feel validated? It’s like busting your ass day in and day out trying to win your father’s approval. It’s such a relief when you finally give up trying to do that and say to yourself, “Screw it. I’m cool whether he says so or not.”

That’s when my joyous sense of historical vindication went away. So now I’m thinking, “Fuck you, mainstream culture! Who needs you?

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Wrapping Yourself in Cripples

 

Suppose, just for a moment, that you’re a ruthless dictator or even, dare I say, a corporate CEO. You’re feeling under siege because the voices of dissent have become quite numerous lately and you’ve had to spend an inordinate amount of your time and energy crushing them. Thus, you have been attracting increased scrutiny and this makes you uncomfortable. You need a feel-good distraction that’s designed to take everyone’s mind off of what an asshole you are so you can commit genocide in peace. (After all, that’s how you thought it would be when you took this job.)

You need your reputation laundered. Well in that case, may I suggest finding some cripples to embrace. It’s just like seeking insulation by wrapping yourself in the flag except you’re wrapping yourself in cripples.

It’s a tried-and-true means of making yourself look like a sweetheart. But you must be careful. It is imperative that you resist the temptation to embrace any old cripples. Because, like I said, the goal is to conjure up a “feel good” distraction. So you must be aware that not all cripples are warm and cuddly, as hard as that is to believe. Some cripples do things that piss people off, like go around protesting and demanding their rights. You certainly don’t want to associate yourself with them.

 No, you need something like the Special Olympics. It needs to be something safe and reliable and completely uncontroversial. It needs to be something that no one would dare publicly criticize in any way, for fear of being labeled insensitive. And who could possibly criticize a bunch of limping cripples in leg braces bravely racing each other around a track? It doesn’t matter if there’s a lot more than that to the Special Olympics. As long as enough people believe that’s all there is to it, that’s all that matters.

 If you’re a ruthless dictator, all you have to do is send your spouse to the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics to throw out the first beanbag. (What is the proper title for the spouse of a ruthless dictator? The First Bitch?)  Notice how I used the word spouse instead of wife. That’s because I ‘m not sexist. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that women aren’t capable of being ruthless dictators. Just look at Margaret Thatcher.

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The Orange Man

 I call him The Orange Man because he wore an orange shirt and an orange baseball cap. He peddled an orange bike and there was a rope attached to the back of it from which he pulled an orange wagon. The wagon was full of what appeared to be random scraps of cardboard.

It was the 4th of July. As I exited my cripple van via the ramp deployed from the side door he stopped peddling and stared at me. He said something about how he used to own a cripple van like mine, even though he wasn’t in a wheelchair. He said he put 50 thousand miles on it and it served him well.

And then he said that his nephew (or maybe was his cousin or son) was interested in designing wheelchairs when he was a kid but now he’s working for Tesla.

And I almost said, “So he works for Elon Musk, huh? But then again, don’t we all?”

But The Orange Man struck me as a Fox News type of guy. So instead, I just said “Oh.”

Then The Orange Man said, “Well I’m sorry to tell you but your wheelchair is forever out of balance. Because no two tubes can be shaped exactly the same.”

“Why not?” I said. 

“Because tubes have memories,” he said. “Just like you have a memory. I bet you remember when you were straight and strong and you could walk.”

“Not really,” I said. “I’ve always been this way.”

“Well I feel for you,” he said.

“No need,” I said. And that’s when I thought the best thing to do was to just get the hell out of there, So I spun around and left.

But then I heard his voice coming from behind me, shouting, “Well at least you’re free!”

I was right. He really was a Fox News type of guy.

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The Battle of the Street Beggars

There are a lot of those Latin American immigrants who are seeking asylum in the U.S. hanging around the city here. When they first started showing up here about a year ago, I was pissed. I wasn’t pissed at them.  I was pissed at the guy who put them on a bus and  dumped them all here, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas. I figured he was trying to pull some racist bull shit, like guys like him love to do. I figured he was trying to make everyone up here believe that these dirty Spanish speakers were invading our country and taking away our jobs.

At first, the more I saw of those immigrants, the more I felt sorry for them.  They looked like regular folks who were just seeking decent work so they can take care of their families and enjoy their lives.

But now I ‘m thinking maybe Abbott was right. Maybe they really are invading our country and taking away our jobs. They’re taking away cripple jobs. Because what’s the job most closely associated with cripples? Street beggars, right? I’m not basing that on data from sociological research or anything like that. I’m just going by how I think cripples are viewed by verts (which is what I call people who can walk because it’s short for vertical).

Anyway, it seems like a lot of the Latin American immigrants are going for those jobs, probably because those are the only jobs they can get. You don’t need a permit or a license or anything. All you need to do is go sit on a corner with a cup. And you don’t really need a cup.

When I have personally encountered these Latin American immigrants., it has usually been when I passed them as they were being street beggars. I know it’s them because they usually hold a sign scrolled with black marker on a sturdy hunk of cardboard that identifies them as such. They are wise to do this because it gives them a marketing advantage. Let’s face it, if you’re walking down the streets of Chicago and you’re feeling generous enough to toss a few coins at a street beggar, you can’t do that with every street beggar you see, or you’ll go broke. You must be discerning. You have to give your money to the beggar that you feel will give you the best bang for your coins, so to speak.

 That used to mean that crippled beggars had the marketing advantage because, all things considered, most people found it doubly satisfying to toss their coins at a crippled beggar rather than some begging vert.  I’m not basing that on data from sociological research or anything like that. I’m just going by how I think cripples are viewed by verts.

But now it seems like the Latin American beggars are undercutting the crippled beggars. My suspicions were confirmed recently when I was walking around downtown and I came across a family of begging Latin Americans. It looked like their cup was pretty full. But around the corner was a forlorn-looking crippled beggar. He shook his cup and it sounded pathetically empty.

I can’t blame people for wanting to give their money to Latin American immigrant beggars. It’s like giving a big middle finger to Abbott, which makes it feel extra good.

But if cripples can’t beg anymore, we’re screwed!

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