My "Special Needs" Entourage

I hate to say it, but I’m rapidly becoming one of those “special needs” people. Whenever I write or say “special needs” I always put it in quotes because, I don’t know, it just seems like the kind of thing that should always be put in quotes.

But the older I get the more crippled I get. And the more crippled I get the more “special” my “needs” become. Pretty soon I’m gonna need an entourage of specialists to follow me around and meet my “special needs.”

Here are some of the job titles:

Waker upper. These are the people who will follow me around carrying cattle prods and or Taser guns. Because now every night I have to sleep hooked up to bulky-ass breathing machine because I go through long periods where I stop breathing while I’m sleeping. I call it Old Cripple Syndrome. And when the doctor prescribed the machine for me he told me I’d better not ever sleep without it, not even for one night, or my brain might get starved for oxygen and that could cause me to have a heart attack or stroke. And he said I’d better not even doze off while riding in the car or reading or anything without being hooked up to my machine. And now I hate that doctor for being honest with me like that because now I’m paranoid about spontaneously falling asleep. It’s terrifying to think about what might happen to me if my brain was deprived of oxygen, even for a few minutes. I might turn into a republican.

So the job of my waker upper will be to remain alert and vigilant and if I ever doze off without my machine, shock me back to consciousness.

Straw caddy. Every time I drink something, I drink it through a straw. This is very frustrating because the vast majority of humans are enormously unschooled when it comes to straws and thus they assume that one straw design fits all.

But that’s bullshit. If you don’t believe me, try drinking a Martini through a McDonald’s straw. The straw will just fall out of the glass and roll off the table to the floor. Proper consumption of a Martini requires using a short, narrow bar straw. But try to drink a McDonald’s shake using one of those bar straws. You’ll suck so hard you’ll give yourself an aneurysm. Standard lightweight plastic straws fall out of glasses containing bubbly beverages like champagne because the bubbles push them out. Only heavyweight straws made of hard plastic or metal can stand their ground in a bubbly beverage. And drinking out of a tall vessel like a pint glass requires using a straw that bends.

Etc.

So my straw caddy will be the keeper of my vast array of straws for all occasions. And whenever a beverage is placed before me, she/he will withdraw precisely the right straw from the quiver.

Stunt cripple. Our infrastructure is crumbling. It seems like the terrain in the city is getting rougher by the day. When I see a curb ramp that’s as steep as a toboggan slide with a gaping pothole at the bottom, I have visions of myself being whiplashed like a ragdoll and then catapulting out of my wheelchair if I try to roll down it. I’m getting too old for shit like that so that’s when I'll call in my stunt cripple to tackle all the rugged terrain for me. Also, I feel really guilty when activist cripples invite me to protests where they march 10 miles in the cold. I feel obligated to join them but I’m getting too old for that shit too. So I'll send my stunt cripple to be my protesting proxy.


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