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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