When the Rights of Cripples Clash with the Rights of Sea Turtles

It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even drink a beer without feeling guilty about how such a thoughtless, selfish action on my part might be causing great harm to poor little sea turtles.

I got this goddam email alert from some friends-of- the-environment organization urging me to sign a petition demanding that McDonald’s to stop using plastic straws. The email said straws end up being a major source of ocean pollution and they often end up lodged in the nostrils of sea turtles or the throats of seabirds.

Damn! What a disturbing image that is! But hell no, I won’t be signing. The only reason I go to McDonald’s is for the straws. The food is shit but the straws are great! They’re sturdy and durable. And they’re so cheery with their red and yellow stripes.

And the best thing about McDonald’s straws is they’re free. That means a helluva lot to people like me who drink everything through a straw because we’re crippled. We don’t fit the profile of your typical arrogant, frivolous homo sapiens who use straws willy-nilly and then toss them away. For us, using straws is a necessity! Thus, we are constantly replenishing our personal straw stashes. And nobody pays for straws, just like nobody pays for pens or coat hangers. You just accumulate them as you go through life. Hey, it’s a brutal world out there. You gotta grab free shit whenever you can!

So the only reason I go to McDonald’s is so I can snatch a shitload of free straws. Sometimes I’ll order the cheapest thing on the menu like a shitty little hamburger if I’m afraid snatching straws might get me busted for shoplifting. Someday I’ll get up the guts to do it at the drive-thru. “Gimme two chicken nuggets and a shitload of straws.”

So without plentiful sources of free straws, like McDonald’s, I could easily shrivel up from dehydration and blow away. Or I could go broke buying straws. I feel the need to organize a political alliance of straw users, including people who are temporary straw users, like those recovering from a broken jaw. I respect the rights of all creatures, including sea turtles. I would certainly feel awful if a straw embedded in one of their nostrils could be traced back to me, using DNA testing. But what about me? Don’t I have rights, too?





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I'd Rather Have my Leg Cut Off

If I wasn’t already crippled and had to choose to become crippled either by amputation or spinal cord injury, I’d choose amputation any old day. It must be a helluva lot easier becoming an amputee than a quad because the media doesn’t put as much shit in your head.

If you’re a quad, the media has put forth lots of role models for you to follow. And that’s the problem. Remember when Christopher Reeve fell off his horse? Or how about all those people who get spinal cord injuries playing football? There are always always always media stories about how these courageous people are determined to overcome their injuries and return to their glory days of uncrippledness.

So if I was freshly crippled due to spinal cord injury, I’d be inclined to think that my primary obligation as a cripple to myself and everybody else was to become uncrippled as soon as humanly possible. Anything less is a dereliction of duty. So I’d be inclined to spend a thousand hours a week working out in a physical therapy gym in a quest to fulfill my obligation to society.

I’m glad Stephen Hawking didn’t feel that way. It would be pretty fucked up if he spent all day sitting motionless in a physical therapy gym instead of pondering the universe and shit. I’m glad we don’t see him being interviewed on television with the robot voice of his talking box saying, “I will not rest until I can talk again.”

But anyway, suppose when Christopher Reeve fell off his horse he ended up having to have his leg cut off instead. That would have caused the media’s head to explode. They wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with that. Because if Christopher Reeve vowed to do whatever it takes to grow his leg back, even the media would’ve thought that was silly. We all would’ve just had to accept the new normal of a one-legged Christopher Reeve. You can’t spin it any other way.

That’s why I bet it’s a helluva lot easier to become crippled via amputation. You’re allowed to advance immediately to the stage of accepting your new crippled self and figuring out what it all means. You can get on with it. There aren’t any role models in the media fucking everything up.






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Holbrook's Cripple Nicknames

Holbrook was a guy who lived in my dorm when I was in college. He came from one of those teeny towns where there are no cripples, so I doubt that he ever got a good look at a cripple until he got to college. But he made up lots of funny nicknames for many of the crippled students he saw puttering around campus. The nicknames were sort of like smart ass secret service code names. To me that was a sure sign that he felt really comfortable around cripples or really uncomfortable. I’m not sure which.

There was one cripple that propelled his wheelchair by pushing it backwards with his feet. Holbrook called him Crawdaddy. There was another cripple Holbrook often saw eating in the dorm mess hall. This cripple tilted his head far back and his feeder dropped food into his open mouth. Holbrook called this cripple Baby Bird.

There was another cripple who always walked really fast and on the tips of her toes like she was walking on hot coals. Holbrook called her Hot Foot. And there was another cripple who also walked weird. He swayed from side to side and waved his arms around and did lots of involuntary fancy footwork. Holbrook called him Fred Astaire.

More than once I told Holbrook I wanted to know what his cripple nickname was for me. But he always insisted that he didn’t have one. “Come on!” I said. “You can tell me! I can take it!” But he just held up his hands, all innocent and shit.

When I asked other guys around the dorm what Holbrook’s nickname for me was, they all said he didn’t have one. I was convinced that they all entered into a secret pact to never divulge to a cripple his/her Holbrook nickname. It’s much funnier that way. But eventually I started to believe that maybe Holbrook really hadn’t come up with anything for me. I felt kind of insulted.

But as I look back, I can see where I might have been a stumper for Holbrook. As cripples go, I’m pretty one-dimensional. I ride around in a motorized wheelchair and that’s about it.

You can’t really call me Spazzo. And I don’t drool, at least not when I’m sober. I don’t walk weird. I don’t walk at all. And there’s nothing weird about the way I don’t walk.

I have kind of a big head. But that doesn’t have anything to do with me being crippled. If I was cured, I’d still have a big head. And it’s not grotesquely big. You can’t rightfully call me the Wizard of Oz or anything like that.

My trunk balance is poor, which makes me pretty floppy. Holbrook maybe could have riffed on that and called me Scarecrow or Jellyfish. My legs are thin and spindly. If Holbrook saw me wearing shorts, that might have inspired something in him. Flamingo Legs?

But that’s a real stretch. Try as he might, if Holbrook pondered a cripple nickname for me, he probably couldn’t come up with anything better than That Crippled Guy Down the Hall.




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Your Incontinence Will Not Save You

I talked to this guy who’s as crippled as I am and he told me all about how he spent several years in prison. He said he was set up. Someone used him as a drug mule without him knowing it.

This guy needs as much help as I do. He needs someone to drag his ass out of bed every morning, lift him on and off the crapper, etc. But they still sent his ass to prison!

Damn! That’s cold! There are a lot of things that I figure being crippled will probably get me out of. Like for instance, carjacking. I wouldn’t be too worried if someone came up to me in my cripple van and said, “Get out of the car, motherfucker!” Because I would say, “Well okay, I’m happy to oblige. But just give me a sec while my driver here comes around and unhooks the safety restraints securing my wheelchair. Then we’ll deploy the ramp so I can exit through the sliding passenger door and you’ll be on your way. It shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes. Stand back now. I wouldn’t want the ramp to swing out and hit your tootsies.” By that time, the carjacker would say fuck it and go jack the next guy.

Being an incontinent cripple will get you out of even more stuff. Flaunting your incontinence comes in real handy in those moments in life when you want people to just back the hell off. Often I wish I had a t-shirt that says, I AM INCONTINENT, even though I’m not. If a carjacker saw me in that shirt he’d probably take off running before he could even say, “Get out of the car, motherfucker!” I would also wear that shirt when I’m sitting on a plane and the other passengers are filing in and I bet you a million nobody would sit next to me unless it was absolutely the last fucking seat on the whole damn plane. And even then they’d probably say to the flight attendant, “That’s okay. I’ll stand. I’m good.”

And I would for sure wear that shirt if I was in court being sentenced for a crime. I would hope it would make the judge and the prosecutor say to themselves, “Damn, this guy’s incontinent, too? We don’t want to deal with all that. Let’s just give him probation or something.”

Maybe that crippled guy who went to prison should have pleaded incontinence, even though he’s not. Maybe that would have saved him. But then again, maybe not. The judge and prosecutor might’ve said hell with it; he can go to prison and piss his pants. There may be times when even incontinence isn’t enough to get you off the hook.



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