Liza Minnelli Parties on Hallowen

(It is my duty to report that the following story is true, except names were changed to protect the guilty and to make the story funnier.)

Now that Christmas is upon us and spirits are aglow, it’s the perfect time to pass down a true cripple tale about Halloween. This tale was told to me by my longtime cripple friend and comrade, Liza Minnelli (Smart Ass Cripple alias).

Twas Halloween night, many moons ago. Liza Minnelli was but a wee college freshman. She lived in a dorm. Liza Minnelli was truly excited because as everyone knows, dressing up and acting crazy on Halloween is the whole point of going to college.

Liza Minnelli’s Halloween party buddies for the night were her quadriplegic friend, Sylvester Stallone (another Smart Ass Cripple alias) and his girlfriend, Cher (one last Smart Ass Cripple alias). Cher was the lone vert (which is short for vertical, which is slang for a person who can walk). And, being broke-ass college students, they all had to create homemade, no-budget costumes out of whatever they had in their closets and medicine cabinets. So they all dressed as vampires—black clothes, powder in their hair to make it white, black makeup smudged around their eyes, red nail polish streaked near the corners of their mouths to look like dripping blood, plastic fangs.

The big Halloween street party was in the big town, about 15 miles away. So Liza Minnelli and her friends rented one of the campus lift-equipped cripple vans. Sylvester Stallone sat in back in his wheelchair. Liza Minnelli boosted herself up into the front passenger seat and Cher stowed Liza’s wheelchair in back with Sylvester Stallone. Cher drove.

Next our three heroes stopped at a grocery store for munchies. They all got out and shopped. Then they all loaded back into the cripple van and headed for the big party in the big town.

As luck would have it, when they arrived at the big town they found a prime parking spot right near Halloween party central. Liza Minnelli was feeling full of the Halloween spirit. Cher stepped out of the van and opened the side door. And then she said, “Oh shit!” She laughed a nervous that belied the look of embarrassed shock on her face.  “I forgot your wheelchair!” she said to Liza Minnelli. “I must’ve left it in the parking lot of the grocery store!”

Liza Minnelli was panic-stricken! I mean, she couldn’t walk a lick. Never could. What was she supposed to do, walk on her knuckles like an orangutan? So Cher hustled off to find the nearest payphone to call the store. She returned with good news and bad news. The wheelchair was safe and sound. But the store was closing so there was no time to go get it. And even if there was, driving all the way there and back would leave a lot less time to party and that was unacceptable.

So now what? Where could one possibly find a wheelchair on such short notice? They all pondered in silence. And then Sylvester Stallone said, “Hey! How about a hospital?”

What a brilliant idea!

So they set out in search of a hospital, asking pedestrians along the way. And soon, there it was—a big beautiful hospital! They circled the hospital slowly in the cripple van, casing the joint out. And then, as if from the heavens, there appeared through the hospital windows a secluded corridor full of empty wheelchairs! Now was their chance! Cher scooped up Liza Minnelli and carried her into the hospital. She plopped Liza Minnelli down into a wheelchair with an I.V. pole attached and the hospital name stenciled on the back. 

But then they encountered a man wearing scrubs. The man saw the two women dressed like pseudo vampires and said, “Hey, where are you going with that wheelchair? That’s hospital property!”

Cher thought fast! She said, “Oh um, my friend here was just discharged! I’m just taking her to my car.”

Fortunately for Liza Minnelli and Cher, the man in the hospital scrubs was either a) a trusting soul who believed in the innate goodness of all humans or b) busy. Because the man turned and left. So Cher sped out of the hospital with Liza Minnelli in the hot wheelchair, tossed them both into the cripple van, hopped behind the wheel and peeled out.

And so Halloween was saved! Liza Minnelli got to party after all in a hospital wheelchair with an I.V. pole. And the next day she was reunited with her own wheelchair. The hospital wheelchair was never returned. Instead it lived a long and happy life at the dorm. The students found many good uses for it, such as drag racing and toting kegs.

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