A Life-Affirming Response to a Fuck-it-All State of Mind

I live in a neighborhood full of peril. There are many desperate young people who can easily make an impulsive wrong turn that they will eternally regret.

About a block east of my home is a military recruitment office. Now when I say that, you may envision me living in a barren slum. Because that’s where military recruitment offices tend to set up shop. You don’t tend to see them in the posh suburbs because most people turn to the military for the same reason they turn to Jesus. When I hear people testify about the day they suddenly turned to Jesus, I never hear, “It was a fine sunny day. I had a great job and a fine family. So that’s when I asked Jesus to please save me.” No, these the-day-I-signed-up-with-Jesus stories are usually tales of great distress. I imagine that’s also usually the case when someone suddenly signs up with the military.

But I don’t live in a barren slum at all. In fact, just down the block from me to the south is an oooh-la-la fingernail spa where one can treat oneself to an array of pampering services, including a Brazilian bikini wax.

But also in my neighborhood is an arts college. So now you can begin to see the diabolical logic behind placing a military recruitment office around here. The military is betting on a steady flow of lost and rejected souls. Scenario: You’re a a student at the arts college. You pour your heart into your student film and your professor dismisses it as derivative. Or maybe you’re beaten out by some snotty rich kids for the lead in Streetcar. You’re wandering the streets, reeling from the blow, drowning in the quicksand of a fuck-it-all state of mind. You see the recruitment office. An oasis! A beacon on the stormy sea! You sign up. And soon you wonder what the hell you just did. You’d give anything to take it back. It’s like getting blackout drunk and waking up with a Barry Manilow tattoo.

But all is not hopeless: There is another scenario. While wandering the streets steeped in deep dismay, you instead pass the spa and see the Brazilian bikini wax signs in the window. That sounds like an exotic and rewarding career, you think to yourself. You decide to become a practitioner. You picture yourself in Brazil, an eager apprentice learning from the masters.

Isn't that a much happier ending? It’s a life-affirming response to a fuck-it-all state of mind.

The Official Suppository of Smart Ass Cripple

This entry is brought to you by the good people at EZ Suppositories, the official suppository of Smart Ass Cripple.

Yep, that’s right. Here at smart Ass Cripple we have to figure out a way to pay the bills, just like every other schlump in the world. So in order to pay the bills, I’m whoring myself out to corporate America, just like every other schlump in the world.

What do I have to offer that’s of any possible value to corporate America? I offer access to the cripple market. The people who read my stuff are mostly cripples, plus a smattering of uncrippled people who for whatever weird reason like reading stuff about cripples. So I let it be known that any wise, visionary businessperson can score big points with consumers who are crippled (or who are uncrippled but for whatever weird reason like reading stuff about cripples) by forking over enough cash to make their product the official fill-in-the-blank of Smart Ass Cripple.

The only problem is, corporate America seems to think that the only products cripples buy are cripple products—more specifically, cripple bodily function products. Corporate America seems to think that all cripples do all day is excrete. Because ads for bodily function products are the types of ads you see in magazines or on sites that are for cripples. You never see an ad for toothpaste. But why not? Cripples brush their teeth every day, just like every other schlump in the world.

But hell with it. Corporate America can go blow itself. I’ve got the fine folks at EZ Suppositories on board with me now! They were the first and only business so far to step up and accept my challenge to become an official Smart Ass Cripple product sponsor. It was a bold move on their part. But then again, who would expect anything less from the creators of the world’s most user-friendly suppositories with the patented EZ Glide tip?

But there are still plenty more Smart Ass Cripple official sponsorships to be had. So how about it, corporate America? I’m sorry I told you to go blow yourself. I was only kidding. Who wants to be the official catheter of Smart Ass Cripple? The official bedpan? How about the official incontinence pad?

And in conclusion, let me remind everyone out there that the next time you need a suppository, don’t settle for second best. Insist on EZ suppositories. You’ll be glad you did!





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Maybe I Secretly Wish I Could be a Wheelchair Princess

There are certain cripples that give me the creepy-crawlies. I try my best to avoid them because being around them makes me really uncomfortable. I hate to admit it but it’s true.

I usually only see these cripples at large cripple festivals. I can pick them out in a crowd because these cripples have a very distinct trait that distinguishes them from all the rest of us. They wear tin tiaras and silken sashes that say MISS WHEELCHAIR AMERICA or MISS WHEELCHAIR WYOMING or whatever.

I think these cripples give me the creepy-crawlies so bad because they are the princesses of the cripple set. I mean, they aren’t literally princesses. They aren’t married to princes and they aren’t the offspring of kings and queens. They are princesses in the sense that their images are so delicate and pristine. They can’t get their fingernails dirty.

Wheelchair princesses make me feel a strange combination of intimidation and resentment. Princesses in general intimidate me because I have no idea what to say to them. I imagine just about every conversation topic except maybe the weather is off limits when taking to a princess. It’s the same way I feel about talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses.

But still, the degree to which I recoil from the wheelchair princesses is disproportionate to the magnitude of the offense they commit by being princesses. Why should I care if they want to be princesses? Maybe I’m jealous. Sour grapes, you know? Maybe deep down inside I wish I could be a wheelchair princess but I know that can never ever be. No such grotesque pageant exists. And so I am bitter and resentful. I’m like a homophobe who’s secretly gay.

Or maybe what I really resent about the wheelchair princesses is the tragic waste of political power. The cripple spectrum is vast. Down on one end are the princesses. And way down on the other end of the spectrum are the chain-yourself-to-the-Senator’s-desk cripples. You never see a wheelchair princess engaged in trench warfare like that, which is a real fucking shame because wouldn’t that make a powerful image? There’s an angry cripple chained to a Senator’s desk and the angry cripple is wearing a tin tiara and a silken sash that says MISS WHEELCHAIR AMERICA or MISS WHEELCHAIR WYOMING or whatever. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be that Senator. Even the princesses are pissed off!

But princesses don’t do such things. Princesses are not allowed to be pissed off. Engaging in such actions would surely be grounds for being decrowned or excommunicated or whatever it’s called when you’re kicked out of the castle.

Maybe that’s why I’m put off by the wheelchair princesses. I know their pageants aren’t a victimless crime.




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The Tears of a Cripple

Suppose cripple tears were considered to be a fine delicacy. Just stop and take a minute out of your whirling day to consider that possibility.

Suppose the tears of cripples were held in the same highly-coveted regard by the ultra-elite as stuff like ivory, shark fins, glacier ice cubes, various animal pelts and ortolans. Suppose the most surefire way to be recognized as the undisputed elitest of the elitists was to throw an exclusive party and serve your guests an exotic cocktail of Moet & Chandon Dom Perignon infused with genuine, imported cripple tears.

Wouldn’t this be a wonderful world for cripples if that was the case? Or even better yet, suppose cripple tears were considered to be a powerful aphrodisiac. Why not? Stranger things have happened. Suppose someone somehow came in contact with a cripple tear and discovered that it made them ragingly horny. And so word spreads that a single cripple tear on the tip of the tongue will make you and/or the object of your desire as lit up as a gorilla on coke.

Oh baby, if that was really how things were life would be unspeakably, joyously glorious for cripples because then every cripple would be able to live their ultimate dream, which is to tell Social Security to go fuck itself. Fuck you and your Medicare Parts A, B, C and D! I don’t need you anymore! And while we’re at it, we could also tell the vocational -rehabilitation counselors to go suck it too. I don’t need to work on an assembly line attaching heads to Barbie dolls anymore either! I produce a precious, endlessly-renewable, 100-percent organic natural resource, goddammit! Cripple tears! I’m going into business for myself!

In such a heavenly universe, every cripple could get obscenely rich simply by inducing his/her tears on a regular basis and capturing them in little eyedropper bottles. And fortunately, there are plenty of methods for inducing tears that do not involve striking oneself with a hammer. One could, for example, immerse oneself in something so funny that it makes you laugh until you cry. One could also chop onions or watch the Chicago Cubs. Another extremely effective technique for inducing tears, which I learned from a drunken dare back in my college days, is to squirt hot sauce up your nose.

Ah but alas’, cripple tears are not aphrodisiacs at all. Our tears are not even a delicacy. They’re just tears, as worthless as everyone else’s.




(Smart Ass Cripple is completely reader supported. Contributing to the tip jar, purchasing books and subscribing through Amazon Kindle keeps us going. Please help if you can.)