When I was in Kindergarten I was an Idiot

When I was in kindergarten I was an idiot. Part of the kindergarten curriculum was a period after lunch called nap time. They’d take all us cripples to a dark room full of cots and make us lie down. And I fucking hated nap time! I resisted napping like it was torture. They practically had to bound and gag me to get me to settle down and take a damn nap.

See what I mean? Was I an idiot or what? I don’t know what I was thinking with that pea-sized kindergarten brain of mine. But I am a changed man. I fantasize now about having a job where the supervisor calls an emergency staff meeting to announce, “Listen up! A new edict just came down from corporate. Effective immediately, after lunch, everybody has to take a nap!”

Taking naps is a pain in the ass for me because I can’t get myself in and out bed. I’d have to call in one of my pit crew members to toss me in bed and all that so I just say fuck it and I don’t take naps, which is a damn good thing because if I could nap at will it probably would have ruined my life a long time ago.

Because I know me. When I get all cozy warm up under the covers I never want to come out. And I’m married to a woman who’s the same way. She’s a nap enabler. Maybe some people can power nap and spring up fresh after 10 minutes. But I know I don’t have that kind of will power. My naps would be seven, eight, nine hours long. I wouldn’t have any friends or a job and I’d end up on the streets, napping on a cardboard slab.

Eventually the bouts of post-nap remorse would get to be too much for me and I’d finally admit to myself that I’m napping my life away and I need help. I’d join Nappers Anonymous. And I pity the person who becomes my sponsor. I’d wear that poor sap out quick. I’d call him/her every day and here’s how it would go:

ME: I really wanna take a nap.

SPONSOR: No! Stay awake, brother!

ME: I’m gonna take a nap. Just a quick one. Ten minutes. Good night.

SPONSOR: Hold on! I’m coming over!

My sponsor kicks down my door and finds me all cozy warm up under the covers and I’m sawing wood like a sonuvabitch. He/she has to do something that will irritate me enough to get me out of bed, like strike up the live marching band he/she brings along in these emergency situations. Or maybe play a republican presidential debate at full blast. And I’d probably take a swing at him/her and then the police would come.

So it’s a good thing I can’t get myself in and out of bed.




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A Public Apology to the Great and Powerful Oz

This is my public apology to this guy I know whom I shall refer to as the Great and Powerful Oz (Smart Ass Cripple alias}. The Great and Powerful Oz has demanded no such apology. He probably doesn’t even know I owe him one. But I feel the need to unburden.

A few years back I was planning to have a party. The Great and Powerful Oz caught wind of this and when I ran into him he said, “Hey, can I come to your party?” I said of course he could come. I wasn’t going to say no and look like an elitist asshole, especially since he asked me in front of other people. But I was worried because I’d heard tales of his ability to consume massive quantities of beer. And sure enough, the Great and Powerful Oz came to my party and plopped down on my couch and downed what seemed to be 99 bottles of beer. It was probably only about 5 or 6. But finally when he held up an empty bottle and asked for another, I slipped him a bottle of nonalcoholic beer. And he happily downed it and 2 or 3 more without knowing the difference because The Great and Powerful Oz is blind.

I know that was a shitty thing to do to pull a fast one on a blind person. And I must also confess that my sneaky action was very premeditated. When I went to the liquor store to buy beer for my party, I picked up some nonalcoholic beer in anticipation of that very scenario. Why the hell else would I buy nonalcoholic beer?

I’m not proud of what I did. Well, actually, I am a little proud. But I’m definitely not proud of the fact that I’m not completely not proud. Being a little proud of my action makes me feel even more ashamed of it. That much I can say for sure! I took the easy way out and in so doing I undermined a fellow cripple’s hard-earned independence, autonomy, sense of dignity and right to self-determination. But I am a weak person. I am a hypocrite. I should have treated the Great and Powerful Oz the way I would want to be treated if the roles were reversed. I should have said to him, “I know that you have as much right as anyone to make your own decisions and to plot the course of your own life. As your crippled comrade, I will always honor and respect that. And so I say unto you that I believe you’ve had too much to drink and you should switch to nonalcoholic beer.” But I don’t think the Great and Powerful Oz would have passively gone along with that recommendation and that could well have altered the course of the evening. This was supposed to be a party, not a damn intervention. It was a lot easier to just slip him nonalcoholic beer.

So I hope the Great and Powerful Oz reads this public apology. Actually, I really hope he doesn’t read it because then the next time I see him he’ll say, “Hey, you slipped me nonalcoholic beer, asshole!” And for the sake of again avoiding confrontation, I’ll vehemently deny that he is the subject of this piece. I’ll lie and assert that this is purely a work of fiction and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is a coincidence.

I’m such a weak person.


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For Those Who Can't

I don’t know how to feel about those events where people raise money for a certain genre of cripples by getting together and doing something those particular cripples really suck at doing.

I’m talking about events with names like The Third Annual Walk for Those Who Can’t. People walk a mile or so and collect pledges and give the money to an organization serving cripples who can’t walk. If they do the walk on a Saturday, which is a slow news day, it might get a 15-second spot on the local news.

The Muscular Dystrophy Association sponsors events called Muscle Walks. Their online store is called the Muscle Shop and there you can buy stuff like backpacks, t-shirts and coffee mugs that say Make a Muscle on them. People with muscular dystrophy, like me, come in all shapes and sizes. You’ll find us in all walks of life, in every socioeconomic stratum. But the one thing we all suck at is making a muscle.

So I’m not sure how those of us on the receiving end of this goodwill are expected to react. I think the goal is to help us feel better about ourselves and our situation. Maybe we’re supposed to feel relief. “Don’t worry, pal. I know you can’t walk but I got you covered. You just relax.” But it might have the opposite effect. When people dwell upon that at which you so thoroughly suck at doing, it can make you self-conscious and ornery.

Do people organize these types of events for other cripples, like blind people? The Third Annual Cross a Busy City Street Without Getting Hit by a Bus for Those Who Can’t. What about medical problems, like infertility? The Third Annual Get Pregnant and Give Birth to a Beautiful Healthy Child for Those Who Can’t. What about for political issues? The Third Annual Get a Job that Pays a Woman the Same Thing a Man Gets Paid for Doing the Same Damn Job for Those Who Can’t.

But maybe I’m just a big fat whiner. These people mean well. I should just shut the hell up and get with the spirit. I may not be able to walk, but there are plenty of things I can do well and I should use whatever abilities I have to help those who aren’t as fortunate. So I’m going to raise money for men with erectile dysfunction. The First Annual Get it Up for Those Who Can’t. I’ll gather a bunch of my most virile friends and we’ll sit in a circle. I’m not sure exactly how it will work from there. I don’t know how the pledge part will work either. And I don’t think the local news will cover it.

But I’ll figure it all out. I just want to help men with erectile dysfunction feel better about themselves and their situation.


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The $5 Cardboard Donut ($20 When Adjusted for Inflation)

When I was a wee criplet, my mother paid $5 for a donut. And it wasn’t even edible because it was made of cardboard. The donut said Thank You on it and it hung by a string from the rearview mirror of our rust-riddled station wagon.

I was baffled. That was a helluva lot of money to pay for a donut you couldn’t even eat, especially for a family that drove around in a rust-riddled station wagon. That would be about $20 today. My mother explained to me that she didn’t get just a donut for her $5. She got much more. This was no ordinary donut. The $5, you see, went to support the people who lived at a village for the retarded, which is the word they used back then to describe the people who live in those villages run by nuns and such.

I still didn’t get it. Why would anyone pay that much for a donut? If it was edible and filled with delicious jelly, maybe. But cardboard? What was the point of a donut that you couldn't eat? That was like non-alcoholic beer.

It wasn’t until I became an adult trying to keep up with the hectic pace of life that I fully understood. When the people with the slotted cans who collected money for the village approached the driver’s window of my mother’s car as she waited for the light to change, what they were selling was peace of mind. Because we all have so much to worry about, so many people and things demanding our attention. It’s all so overwhelming. Everyone wants to be a sensitive person who takes the suffering of others to heart. But if you take the suffering of EVERYONE to heart, you’ll drive yourself nuts. You won’t have time or energy left for anything else. But when you purchase a $5 cardboard donut to help the people who live in those villages, you’ll experience the unique joy that comes from knowing you can cross them off your worry list. The nuns will take care of it.

This was a valuable lesson to learn and it will come in handy if I ever have to resort to begging. And hell, the way things are going with Social Security, you never know. I know one thing for sure. I won’t be one of those penny-ante beggars, selling chewed up pencils for whatever nickels and dimes passersby flip me. My chewed-up pencils will sell for $20 each. No haggling. Most people will scoff I’m sure. But many will see the true value of what I’m selling and they’ll consider $20 to be a bargain.

Maybe I’ll build a begging infrastructure as vast as the one assembled by the nuns, with any army of volunteer surrogate beggars doing my begging for me. And maybe I’ll make enough cash to buy myself my own little piece of a hedge fund somewhere. My only regret will be that I didn’t take up this begging business a lot sooner. Foolish pride.

Kinky

Way back when, I knew this cripple named General Douglas MacArthur (Smart Ass Cripple alias). I give him an alias because he carries around a dark secret and I don’t want to out him.

I didn’t know General Douglas MacArthur all that well. I last saw him 25 years or so ago when he was a big shot at a state agency. Then he went on to become a big shot professor or something. He’s helped Senators develop legislation and he’s won awards from U.S. Presidents.

But I’ve always wondered what General Douglas MacArthur says when somebody asks him how he became crippled. Because according to reliable sources I also knew way back when, General Douglas MacArthur injured his spinal cord in a very kinky manner. They say that he was at a drunken outdoor barbecue and he met a woman and soon they went around to the other side of a hill so they could make out in privacy. Meanwhile, another partier left the drunken barbecue and drove his truck over the hill. He didn’t know anyone was on the other side and he ran over General Douglas MacArthur while the woman was in the midst of performing oral sex on him.

And that, they say, is how General Douglas MacArthur became crippled. It’s probably true. There are many stories of people who became crippled because they did some kinky sex thing which accidentally resulted in them losing or ruining a body part, breaking their necks or sustaining a brain injury due to oxygen deprivation or blunt force trauma.

And surely people have asked General Douglas MacArthur how he became crippled. There isn’t a cripple alive who hasn’t had someone come up to them and say, “So, what happened to you?” Does General Douglas MacArthur just mumble something standard like “car accident” and quickly change the subject? Does he make it into something all dramatic, like, “Well I was walking down the street when I saw a toddler about to be mauled by a bear so I immediately--!” If General Douglas MacArthur tells the truth, it would jeopardize his big shot status. Even Christopher Reeve couldn’t fully transcend something like that. Imagine if Christopher Reeve, instead of doing something heroic like falling off a horse, became crippled when he was run over by a truck while receiving oral sex from a stranger. That screws up his whole post-injury gig. There’s no way he goes on to become a courageous warrior for us all to emulate. In deference to his artistic accomplishments and celebrity status, some people might nevertheless still attempt to heap awards and praise upon him. Everybody would applaud and politely play along, but we’d all be secretly snickering on the inside.

I wonder if General Douglas MacArthur’s dark secret curtails his ambition. Maybe he dreams of running for Congress but he’s terrified that his opponent will catch wind of how he really became crippled and smear him in an attack ad. Or maybe the woman who was with him on the other side of the hill will surface and he’ll have to pay her hush money.

If the truth comes out, General Douglas MacArthur may well end up a broken man, a big shot in exile. His only shot at redemption will be to become a public speaker, lecturing high school students. “Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t attend drunken barbecues and go around the hill for oral sex. It’s not worth it.”



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