Yep, Here Comes Another Ask Smart Ass Cripple

  

 Purging the mailbag.

 

Dear Smart Ass Cripple,

I sure wish Superman was for real, don’t you?

Sincerely,

A Big Christopher Reeve Fan

 

Dear Big CRF,

No, I’m very glad that Superman is merely fictitious because there are no phone booths anymore so Clark Kent would probably change into his Superman costume in the cripple stalls of public bathrooms because they’re so roomy. And there are already way too many cases of cripple stalls of public bathrooms being clogged up by verts (which is what I call people who walk, because it’s short for vertical).

I bet Clark Kent would’ve used cripple stalls in public bathrooms to change into Superman from jump except there was no such thing as a public cripple bathroom stall until about 50 years or so ago because there was no such thing as a cripple out in public until about 50 years or so ago.

So I’m glad Superman isn’t for real. It would mean one more pain in the ass for cripples to have to deal with.

Dear Smart Ass Cripple,

I suffer from low self-esteem. What should I do?

Yours truly,

Dorothy the Meek

 

Dear Dorothy the Meek,

Suffering from low self- esteem is stupid! What the hell’s the matter with you? If you pay attention to the people who put you down, you’re an idiot! Stop it right now!

 

Dear Esteemed  Mr. Smart Ass,

I am a little crippled boy. Would you be so kind as to pray for me?

With Warm Regards,

Timmy

 

Dear Timmy,

I’m so glad you asked me to pray for you. When I was little crippled boy about your age, I recited a prayer that helped me live as cripple in a world of verts (see above). As I recall, it went something like this:

“Oh Heavenly Father. Please deliver me from the vortex of shame. When others seek to diminish me because I am crippled, please bestow upon me the wisdom to recognize them as a bunch of dunderheads.

“And in addition, Oh Father, please grant me the strength to endureth byzantine bureaucracies, both public and private. In the future, when I am no longer an adorable criplet and I needeth something like a wheelchair or Social Security, please bless me with the tenacity to not take no for an answer. Please endow me with the ability to file appeal after appeal after appeal after appeal until the forces of recalcitrance finally relinquish that which I need to merely survive. And give me the fortitude to sue them if need be”

There are other stanzas from there that I don’t remember. It’s sort of like the Star Spangled Banner. But you get the idea.

I hope you find this helpful.

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Premature Hospice

 

 

There’s a caregiver agency called Home Instead. There’s another one called Home Again.

There are probably a bunch of others with Home in their name. There ought to be one called Home Forevermore because that would be honest. These agencies with Home in their names make it seem like all the people who use their services ever want to do is stay home all the time.

Maybe that’s true for some but not for me. That’s for damn sure. And I’m one of those people who uses services like theirs. Except I don’t use an agency. That’s also for damn sure. It’s ironic that they call them agencies because if you hire them you don’t have any agency. They just dispatch a stranger dressed in surgical scrubs. I have people come in and help me every day but I hire and train them myself and I fire them if I have to. I can’t believe anybody would want it any other way. And the wages of the people who work for me are paid by our tax dollars through a state program. And I don’t call the people who work for me caregivers. That word grates on me. It sounds too much like babysitter, I guess. I call them my pit crew. And I don’t let them wear surgical scrubs. I’d let them go naked before I’d let them wear surgical scrubs. I feel it’s my obligation to educate the masses by showing that not every cripple has to be constantly accompanied by a medical professional.

In the advertising of the caregiver agencies, the cripples and old people receiving the care are always home. It’s like the cripples are on house arrest. And they’re always happy as hell about it. It’s like their only goal in life is to stay home all the time and the job of their caregivers is to keep them there. I suppose being at home all the time beats the hell out of being looked up in some stinkin nursing home all the time, if those are your only options. 

But if all an agency is going to do is send people to just keep me comfy at home, that sounds like a nursing home on wheels to me. If I had to stay home all the time I’d go nuts. I’m super susceptible to cabin fever. If I had to stay home all the time I’d feel like I’m in hospice. Now don’t get me wrong. I got nothing against people in hospice. Some of my best friends are in hospice. Well, they were. Far be it from me to engage in terminal illness shaming. If I was terminally ill, I wouldn’t be ashamed to admit it. I’d hold my head high.  I wouldn’t try to pretend I’m somebody I’m not.

But I’m not terminally ill yet. So until the time comes, I’m interested in getting out and about a lot. That’s why I have a pit crew. I have things to see and people to do. There’ll be plenty of time for that sitting around doing nothing stuff when I’m terminally ill, or after I’m dead.

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The Age of Consent

  

I know the age of consent is generally 18. That’s the age where we’re considered to be old enough to understand what we’re getting into when we do stuff like have sex.

If you’re 18 you can kill people, as long as you join the armed forces first. And you can also vote but you can’t drink beer.

But I think there are some things for which the age of consent ought to be a whole lot higher than 18. One of those things in particular is shilling for cripple charities. Believe me, I know. I used to be one of those charity spokescriplets. I was a poster child for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. But by the grace of God it was way back when I was cute and apple-cheeked. And that was long before the internet, so precious little, if any, historical record of my reign remains. These days, if you do something regrettable in public, it’s likely to be recorded somehow and forever enshrined on the internet.

It’s true that nobody held a gun to my head and forced me to be a poster kid. I did it for the same reason I went to church. My heart wasn’t in it but doing it pleased the adults around me. But I can see now that I was far too young to understand the potential consequences of my actions.

There was no way I could begin to comprehend concepts like oppression and it’s deep cultural roots and how the life-blood of cripple oppression is the insidious mask of benevolence and compassion it hides behind and the manner in which my playing the role of an eternally-grateful Tiny Tim with no agency except my begging prowess deepens the roots of cripple oppression by reinforcing the one-dimensional stereotypes on which it thrives.

That’s some heavy shit for an 8 year old to wrap their arms around. Hell, that’s some heavy shit for a 38 year old to wrap their arms around. So I think the age of consent for being a cripple poster child ought to be at least 45. I don’t see how anyone with less life experience than that can grasp how what they’re doing impacts others. And they’re bound to have the same jolt of remorse later in life that I had, like when you want to have an ugly tattoo removed. Except these days it’s worse because with the internet, ugly tattoos are permanent.  

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