Natural disasters freak me out. I
live in constant fear that some horrible twist of fate will plunge the human
race into a state of cannibalistic chaos and push us to the brink of
extinction, such as an asteroid striking earth or republicans winning
elections.
Let us ponder the asteroid scenario,
since the republican scenario is far too horrible to even think about. It seems inevitable that sooner or later earth will get blasted. The universe is
constantly hurling snowballs. And it’s not like earth is an elusive moving
target. Earth just sits there, plopped down like a walrus on the crapper.
When disaster strikes, like an
earthquake or tsunami, I see footage of the smoldering rubble or the rampaging
waves and I pray that never happens here. Because if it does, I ask myself
frankly, who’s gonna help me pee?
It’s easy to cut my lifelines.
I schedule a crew of people to come in and out every day and perform indispensible
services, like helping me pee. But what if among those people buried under the
rubble is the person who’s supposed to help me pee? I’ll be screwed.
Veteran cripples develop a variety
of strategies for holding our pee because we know that no matter how proactive we are, there will
be times when we really have to go and there’s nobody around to help. I find
that self-distraction works well for me. One trick is to try reciting the
presidents to myself in order. I feel the urge to pee swelling so to take my mind
off of it until help arrives I close my eyes and say, “Okay. Let’s see:
Washington…. Adams…..uh….. Jefferson………….Van Buren. No wait! Oh shit start
over!”
But Band-Aid measures like that only
work for so long. If I’m bursting to pee
and the people who help me are buried under rubble, I won’t make it past Grover
Cleveland.
And I don’t have faith that I can
rely on the traditional first responders. Will the Red Cross dispatch someone
to help me pee? Doubtful. They have no problem setting up refugee camps and
shit like that, but they have to draw the line somewhere. FEMA? If I call them
they’ll think it’s a prank. The National Guard? I don’t think helping me pee is
included in their mock disaster drills.
The only solution I can think of is
to bring back the draft. Because whenever you have a draft you will also have
draft dodgers. Some people will perform any contortion to stay out of the army.
So one of the public service options we make available to those desiring to
avoid conscription is being an emergency urinal jockey for cripples like me.
These conscientious objectors would be sentenced to hanging around with me all
day in the event of an asteroid strike. They wouldn’t even have to do anything
except be ready to spring into action if my pit crew members end up buried
under rubble or clinging desperately to a hunk of driftwood. These draft
dodgers could also receive some college credits if they want. We could say they
get three or four credit hours in the field of urinalism.