So if somebody cheats and pretends their pet dog is a service dog just so they can get that dog into a public place, does that automatically make that person a scumbag?
Most moral, decent, God-fearing people would answer this question with a resounding. “Hell yes!” This is a crime against crippledom that ranks right up there with parking your car in their special parking spaces or hogging up their bathroom stalls.
Fake service dogs will eventually blow their cover. We’ve all heard stories like about a guy who got his dog into an art museum by swearing it was a service dog and then the stinkin’ mongrel went and pissed all over Rodin’s The Thinker. Real service dogs don’t do stuff like that. In order to become official service dogs, they must survive a rigorous etiquette boot camp.
The service dog fakers ruin it for the real cripples with real service dogs. And service dog faking is big business. Anybody can go online and buy a service dog vest, no questions asked. Law-abiding citizens are starting to get pretty pissed off. There’s a bill in the Colorado legislature that would impose a fine of up to $1,000 for anyone faking like their dog is a service dog.
So yeah, passing your dog off as a service dog is a scumbag thing to do. But really, aren’t there other forms of cripple impersonation that are a lot more scumbaggy? Like how about faking like you’re a make-a-wish kid? That’s the height of scumbaggery right there. I’ve never heard of an actually case of that happening but I’m sure some scumbag out there has tried it. It’s inevitable. Are those make-a-wish kids vetted at all to make sure they’re legit? They probably have to furnish a doctor’s note or something. But hell, if you can get a fake service dog vest online, you can probably get a fake doctor’s note declaring you to be an official make-a-wish kid.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending scumbags. I’m just saying that maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Take the case of an actual woman I know who confessed to me that she once committed service dog fraud. She’s a strong, intelligent, successful and beautiful woman. And since I just exposed her as a service dog faker, I will give her an alias so as to protect her from the mob. I’ll call her Katherine Hepburn. Anyway, one day this strong, intelligent, successful and beautiful woman named Katherine Hepburn was out zipping around in her wheelchair accompanied by her per Chihuahua on a leash. Katherine Hepburn passed a grocery store. Picking up groceries was on her to-do list for the day. She knew that taking the dog home and then returning to the store unaccompanied was the morally upstanding thing to do. But she also knew that since she was in a wheelchair, everyone might just assume it was a service dog. So, when faced with a weighty moral conflict, Katherine Hepburn did what millions of humans throughout the centuries have done. She said fuck it. She took the dog into the store and nobody said a word.
Now granted, she didn’t misrepresent her dog per se. It was more of a case of don’t ask don’t tell. But I ask you, does this make this strong, intelligent, successful and beautiful woman named Katherine Hepburn a scumbag?
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