If you see a single-family home that was built to be accessible for a wheelchair cripple, you know that either a) someone who lives there is a wheelchair cripple or b) someone who is important to someone who lives there is a wheelchair cripple.
I suppose it’s also slightly possible that whoever lives there is neither a wheelchair cripple nor gives a particular crap about anyone who is but they bought the house anyway because it was super cheap. And the reason it was super cheap is because it was built to be accessible for a wheelchair cripple. Making a house accessible for a wheelchair cripple lowers the value of that house and all the other houses around it, or at least that’s what a lot of people seem to think.
You'd think it would be the other way around. You'd think being wheelchair cripple accessible would be as much of a selling point for a house as an outdoor patio. When my Aunt Gerry bought a condo, she bought one that my sister and I could get into with our wheelchairs. And it turned out to be a damn good thing that she did because she ended up needing a wheelchair to get around eventually. The one thing she wanted more than anything else was to stay out of a fucking nursing home and she did. But if her condo hadn’t been wheelchair cripple accessible, she would’ve been screwed.
You’d think everybody would want to do sensible shit like that. Build houses where wheelchair cripple access is a standard feature, just in case. Why not? What does it hurt? But most people seem to think that when building or buying a house, the more wheelchair cripple inaccessible it is the better.
I think what’s going on here is an evil spirits type of thing. Sometimes people put grotesques or gargoyles or voodoo-looking scarecrow thingies on or around their houses to scare away evil spirits. It seems like a lot of people think that making wheelchair cripples feel unwelcome will make crippledness itself feel unwelcome and thus dissuade it from invading the household. I’m surprised they don't put tire-shredding spikes by the front door, as an extra line of defense.
But then, in spite of all that effort, someone in the household becomes crippled anyway and then they’re screwed. Because you can’t scare crippledness away. But you can outsmart it.
(Smart Ass Cripple is completely reader supported. Purchasing Smart Ass Cripple books at lulu.com, subscribing on Amazon Kindle and filling the tip jar keeps us going. Please help if you can.)
ANNOUNCING: Smart Ass Cripple's Little Chartreuse Book. A new Smart Ass Cripple book hot off the presses at lulu.com. It still has that new Smart Ass Cripple book smell. Get yours today! Help keep Smart Ass Cripple going!
