The Look on Barbi Benton's Face

 

 I was browsing through the record department of a big store like Sears.

Yes, this was a long time ago. It was back in the days when there were big stores like Sears that had departments where they sold record albums.

Anyway, I noticed there was some kind of hubbub going on in the corner of the record department. A crowd of people gathered and they were all paying rapt attention to someone. I couldn’t see who the center of attention was or what was going on because everyone in the crowd was standing and I was sitting down. So I worked my wheelchair over that way and inched my way through the crowd. “Excuse me. Coming through. Excuse me, please.”

Eventually I worked my way to the front of the crowd and I saw that the person they were all paying attention to was Barbi Benton

Yes, this was a long time ago. It was back in the days when Barbi Benton was famous for being Hugh Hefner’s girlfriend and for having big boobs, in that order. I say that because whereas her boobs were indeed noteworthy, they weren’t enough to propel her to such heights of fame unto themselves. They needed that extra boost of credibility they received from Hugh’s thumbs up.

It appeared that Barbi was in the record department to plug her new album. Because she sat on a high stool holding a microphone and several album covers with her picture on them were on display around her. I had no idea she could sing. I thought the only thing she wrote on her tax return as an occupation was Hugh Hefner’s girlfriend.

But anyway, the women in the crowd standing next to me shouted out, “Hey, Barbi,  look!” She pointed down at the top of my head. Barbi just said “Hi,” to me but the look on her face said, “Oh shit! That’s not one of those Make-a-Wish kids , is it? Why didn’t anybody warn me about this? They’re supposed to clear this kind of thing through my publicist! This is an ambush! Wait til I see that publicist of mine! I’ll wring his neck!”

I said “Hi” back to Barbi. I don’t know what kind of look I had on my face, but here’s what I was thinking: “Oh shit! She thinks I’m a Make-a-Wish kid! I gotta get the hell out of here!”

So I spun my wheelchair around and got the hell out of there.

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Down Syndrome Envy Part 2

  

 

There’s another thing that Down Syndrome people have over cripples like me. At least everybody’s not putting together cripple awareness simulations where people who don’t have Down Syndrome pretend like they do for a day. For that I am also envious.

It’s common to see cripple awareness simulations where the mayor or somebody rides around in a wheelchair for a day just so they can feel the cripple experience from the inside. And a local news crew follows the mayor around as he/she struggles to push the wheelchair down a broken up sidewalk or to open the heavy doors at the entrance of City Hall. Or sometimes it a blind awareness simulation and the mayor is blindfolded. And at the end of the day the mayor always says what an enlightening experience it was. And the mayor scores points with the voters because everybody likes empathy in their elected officials.

The problem with these simulations is that they really don’t teach anybody much about what it’s like to be crippled. It takes a helluva lot more than one day to learn that. It’s as silly as trying to become a gourmet chef in one day. It takes years of practice to get good at cooking, just like it takes years of practice to get good at being crippled. If you want to know what it’s like to be an amputee, chopping your leg off is just the beginning. Then you’ve got to go around like that for a couple years before you can start to figure it all out.

But there aren’t simulations for every type of crippledness. Like for instance, I’ve never seen a paranoid schizophrenia awareness simulation. I don’t know how you would pull that one off. Maybe the mayor would wear headphones and listen to recordings of disembodied voices for a day. (It’s looks like I could sure use some paranoid schizophrenia awareness training).

And likewise, I’ve never seen a Down Syndrome awareness simulation. I don’t know how you would pull that one off either. Maybe the mayor would wear a mask for a day that makes them look like a Down Syndrome person? But that would have the opposite effect on voters. That’s the kind of thing that can get a mayor impeached, like running around in black face.

 So when it comes to cripple awareness simulations, we all just leave Down Syndrome people alone. Lucky dogs. 

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Down Syndrome Envy

There’s one thing that the Down Syndrome people have over cripples like me. At least everybody’s not running around trying to cure them. For that I am envious.

I don’t know if it’s Hollywood or what but there’s this popular image of cripples like me taking a magic pill or undergoing some operation and then we rise up out of our wheelchairs and dance a joyous jig. And we all live happily ever after. Blind people get that shit a lot, too, probably because of all those movies and television shows where there’s a blind person who had some eye operation and they're covered in bandages and for the big dramatic climax the doctor unravels the bandages and blind person shouts out, “I can see!!!” And they dance a joyous jig and live happily ever after.

But I’ve never seen a movie or television show where somebody with Down Syndrome has an operation or takes a magic pill and then they don’t look or act like they have Down Syndrome anymore and they dance a joyous jig and live happily ever after. I guess Hollywood considers Down Syndrome people to be hopeless in that regard and that’s why I envy them.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to suggest that uncrippled society at large accepts and embraces Down Syndrome people exactly as they are. The way uncrippled society has dealt with the Down Syndrome dilemma has been to try to prevent Down Syndrome people from happening in the first place. I’m sure that as we speak there are researchers in labs feverishly trying to figure out how to keep everybody from acquiring that extra chromosome that will make them into a Down Syndrome person in hope that there will never be another Down Syndrome person ever again. And Down Syndrome people are aborted by the boatload, too. A doctor sees them coming in a prenatal test and advises the mom to terminate them so as not to subject them to a life of endless misery.

But when  Down Syndrome people show up anyway, uncrippled society usually just lets them be. Nobody expects them to dedicate their lives to not being crippled anymore. Lucky dogs.

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