‘Twas a fine summer’s night, as I recall, a couple decades ago. Anna and I were out rolling around, soaking it all in, not a care in the world.
We happened upon Oz Park, the bustling public park one block from where we lived at Over the Rainbow Apartments, a public housing development for cripples. Off in the distance, we heard elephant noises. And then we heard them again. We discovered that the source of the elephant noise was a couple of elephants.
What the hell? Why were there elephants loose in Oz Park? As far as we could tell, it was some sort of traveling petting zoo type of thing. The elephants were closely watched by keepers.
We rolled forward to take a closer look. But as we approached, the elephants whinnied and trumpeted. They rose up on their hind legs and shadow boxed. They handlers were alarmed. They looked around to see what was suddenly spooking the elephants. They looked at us. Everybody else looked at us. We stopped. We backed off.
But hell, it wasn’t our fault! Nobody ever told us that elephants are spooked by wheelchairs! There were no warning labels on our chairs telling us to stay away from elephants or anything like that. I guess when we backed off that removed the source of agitation. Otherwise we would have heard about it for sure. It would’ve been all over the news: Cripples Incite Elephant Stampede.
And the political aftershocks would have been felt for decades. The extensive property damage caused by frantic elephants trampling our upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood would have been Exhibit A for NIMBYs when educating the citizenry about the unspeakable things that can happen when crippled public housing goes up next door. Angry NIMBYs would have surrounded Over the Rainbow, demanding the eviction of all cripples. Some of the NIMBYs didn’t want us there in the first place. Painted on the wall of the building next to Over the Rainbow was a picture of a tree and the words We Shall Not Be Moved. Apparently the plot on which Over the Rainbow was built was once a vegetable garden and some neighbors were adamant about keeping it that way. I guess a compromise was reached— it would no longer be a garden but because it was cripple public housing, it would still be a home for vegetables.
Those were probably the same NIMBYs that once picketed the nearby children’s hospital. When they heard of the plan to build a heliport on the roof of the hospital, they mobilized. I guess they feared that all the noise from helicopters bringing in sick children might flatten their soufflés.
The NIMBYs would’ve demanded that the authorities charge us with inciting an elephant stampede. The ensuing publicity from our trial would’ve had a widespread chilling effect on the construction of public housing for cripples. Of course we’d put up a vigorous legal defense. Whoever issued the permit for an elephant petting zoo, we'd assert, should have done their due diligence and realized there was public housing for cripples right around the corner! But it probably would have been futile.
So it's a good thing we backed off. But it's inevitable that there will be a similar stampede someday, wherever there is crippled public housing and elephant roam. So I still think there ought to be a warning label.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
The Great Fish Conspiracy
The fishing pier on the lake where we took our vacation was accessible so Maria and I went fishing. I bought a cheap pole at the local Kmart and some fake bait which, when we took it out of the package, looked like gummy squid.
We got no bites. The fish in this lake aren’t as dumb as they look. They know gummy squid aren’t indigenous to these waters. They were down there laughing at our fake bait.
Maria asked if I’d ever caught a fish. Indeed I did, I said. It was at cripple summer day camp and they took us to some human-made pond and we fished off of foot bridges, using cubes of cheese as bait. Just before it was time to leave, I caught a fish. Every cripple on our field trip caught a fish that day (and had to throw it back). We all went home happy.
But now, as I recounted my fish story for the first time in about 45 years, there was something disturbingly incongruous about it. How was it that every last cripple just happened to catch a fish that day? Did I really catch that fish or was it all a big set-up? Did someone pull a Special Olympics number on me? Suddenly, the whole thing reeked of conspiracy.
Now I wondered if the reason they took us to that particular pond was because it was also stocked with secret scuba divers, each with a bucket of dead fish and a special, waterproof walkie-talkie. And when it became clear that a certain cripple wasn’t going to catch a fish by natural means within the allotted time, central control radioed the nearest diver. The diver then hung a fish on the cripple’s barren hook like a Christmas ornament and gave the line a hearty tug. Is that how I really caught my fish? Is that why they threw it back so quick, so I wouldn’t notice it was dead?
Was the whole fishing trip rigged to assure there would be no losers? I wouldn’t put it past some do-gooders. They do that kind of stuff to cripples all the time. They go to great lengths. At Jerry Lewis summer camp, they always had cripple talent shows. And no matter what a crippled camper got up on stage and did, the ovation was thunderous. You could sing a song and sound like a hyena having a tooth pulled, but everybody acted like you were Pavarotti. There was a young woman (she wasn’t a kid) who believed she was a ballerina. She wore a tutu and tights. She played a cassette on a tinny boom box as she stumbled and spun. Well, one time it almost got way out of hand. They let her dance at one of the ceremonial campfires and she almost spun her way right into the fire. After that, they finally put some limits on her dancing.
Maybe I really and truly caught that fish. But maybe I didn’t. That’s the problem. Those are the scars left on cripples by the hard core do-gooders, the ones who will stop at nothing. When you get wise to them, you feel like a sucker. You never know what and whom to believe any more. You question the legitimacy of all your trophies.
They should have let me go fishless that day. I could have learned the valuable adult coping skill of rationalizing away failure. I could have done like I did today and blamed it all on the crappy bait.
We got no bites. The fish in this lake aren’t as dumb as they look. They know gummy squid aren’t indigenous to these waters. They were down there laughing at our fake bait.
Maria asked if I’d ever caught a fish. Indeed I did, I said. It was at cripple summer day camp and they took us to some human-made pond and we fished off of foot bridges, using cubes of cheese as bait. Just before it was time to leave, I caught a fish. Every cripple on our field trip caught a fish that day (and had to throw it back). We all went home happy.
But now, as I recounted my fish story for the first time in about 45 years, there was something disturbingly incongruous about it. How was it that every last cripple just happened to catch a fish that day? Did I really catch that fish or was it all a big set-up? Did someone pull a Special Olympics number on me? Suddenly, the whole thing reeked of conspiracy.
Now I wondered if the reason they took us to that particular pond was because it was also stocked with secret scuba divers, each with a bucket of dead fish and a special, waterproof walkie-talkie. And when it became clear that a certain cripple wasn’t going to catch a fish by natural means within the allotted time, central control radioed the nearest diver. The diver then hung a fish on the cripple’s barren hook like a Christmas ornament and gave the line a hearty tug. Is that how I really caught my fish? Is that why they threw it back so quick, so I wouldn’t notice it was dead?
Was the whole fishing trip rigged to assure there would be no losers? I wouldn’t put it past some do-gooders. They do that kind of stuff to cripples all the time. They go to great lengths. At Jerry Lewis summer camp, they always had cripple talent shows. And no matter what a crippled camper got up on stage and did, the ovation was thunderous. You could sing a song and sound like a hyena having a tooth pulled, but everybody acted like you were Pavarotti. There was a young woman (she wasn’t a kid) who believed she was a ballerina. She wore a tutu and tights. She played a cassette on a tinny boom box as she stumbled and spun. Well, one time it almost got way out of hand. They let her dance at one of the ceremonial campfires and she almost spun her way right into the fire. After that, they finally put some limits on her dancing.
Maybe I really and truly caught that fish. But maybe I didn’t. That’s the problem. Those are the scars left on cripples by the hard core do-gooders, the ones who will stop at nothing. When you get wise to them, you feel like a sucker. You never know what and whom to believe any more. You question the legitimacy of all your trophies.
They should have let me go fishless that day. I could have learned the valuable adult coping skill of rationalizing away failure. I could have done like I did today and blamed it all on the crappy bait.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Cinderella Rides Pseudotransit
So suppose Cinderella was crippled. She was crippled and she lived in Chicago in the 1980s, before the Americans with Disabilities Act. She would have been one pissed off princess.
Here’s the scenario: Cinderella gets an invitation to the ball. She’s beside herself with joy. But how will she get to the ball? Well, she could take the bus. The opulent palace where they’re having the ball is right off the number 151 city bus line. It’s a snap!
Oh but wait a minute. This is Chicago in the 1980s and Cinderella is crippled. None of the city buses have wheelchair lifts. All she can do is call paratransit. That’s the only public transit accessible to cripples. (I don’t know why they called it paratransit. It should have been called pseudotransit.)
Pseudotransit will send a cripple bus to pick Cinderella up at her door and deliver her right at the door of the palace. Sounds like a limo, eh? Except that Cinderella will have to call at 5 a.m. the day before the ball to bid for a ride. And she’ll drown in a tidal wave of busy signals because thousands of other cripples are calling at the same time, too. So poor Cinderella may not be able to go to the ball at all, because by the time she gets through, all the allotted pseudotransit rides might be taken.
This all assumes that Cinderella had the foresight to sign up for pseudotransit in the first place. She couldn’t just call out of the blue. First she’d need to have a doctor’s note on file certifying her as a cripple, and maybe even a prescription. Cripples are constantly bothering their doctors for prescriptions. Once I needed a part for my wheelchair which was pretty much just a piece of rubber with a slot in it. I had to get a prescription for a piece of rubber with a slot in it.
So let’s say Cinderella actually gets a pseudotransit ride to the ball. And since this is a fairy tale, let’s even assume the ride shows up on time. Who knows if Cinderella arrives at the ball on time? Because the pseudotransit bus may well first take her to the other side of town to pick up three more cripples and drop them all off before taking her to the ball.
And then there’s that whole midnight curfew issue. Would Cinderella’s prearranged return pseudotransit ride arrive on time for her to make a discreet exit and save herself all that pumpkin embarrassment? There was one thing those of us who were Chicago pseudotransit captives could always count on. If the party was rockin’ and you didn’t want to leave, pseudotransit always showed up on time to take you home. But if the party sucked and you couldn’t wait to leave, pseudotransit would be five hours late.
We all know the ball was a blast so Cinderella may have escaped on time. But considering how much was at stake with punctuality in this case, the pseudotransit Gods, with their sadistic sense of humor, probably would send the pseudotransit bus to the wrong address. And by the time it showed up to fetch Cinderella, she’d be just a pumpkin in a wheelchair. Or is it the pseudotransit bus that turns into a pumpkin? I don’t remember how the story goes. It’s been a long time since I was a six-year-old girl.
Screwed out of her one and only chance to hook up with a flawless man who would dedicate his life to taking care of her so she would never have to think for herself, Cinderella would have been steamed. She would have joined up with all us other steamed cripples at the time who took to the streets demanding full access to public transportation.
Today, crippled Cinderella could get to the ball on the regular city bus. No prescription necessary. And if you think a woman in a wheelchair dressed in a zillion-dollar ball gown would stand out as the biggest weirdo on a big city bus, you’ve obviously never ridden a big city bus.
Here’s the scenario: Cinderella gets an invitation to the ball. She’s beside herself with joy. But how will she get to the ball? Well, she could take the bus. The opulent palace where they’re having the ball is right off the number 151 city bus line. It’s a snap!
Oh but wait a minute. This is Chicago in the 1980s and Cinderella is crippled. None of the city buses have wheelchair lifts. All she can do is call paratransit. That’s the only public transit accessible to cripples. (I don’t know why they called it paratransit. It should have been called pseudotransit.)
Pseudotransit will send a cripple bus to pick Cinderella up at her door and deliver her right at the door of the palace. Sounds like a limo, eh? Except that Cinderella will have to call at 5 a.m. the day before the ball to bid for a ride. And she’ll drown in a tidal wave of busy signals because thousands of other cripples are calling at the same time, too. So poor Cinderella may not be able to go to the ball at all, because by the time she gets through, all the allotted pseudotransit rides might be taken.
This all assumes that Cinderella had the foresight to sign up for pseudotransit in the first place. She couldn’t just call out of the blue. First she’d need to have a doctor’s note on file certifying her as a cripple, and maybe even a prescription. Cripples are constantly bothering their doctors for prescriptions. Once I needed a part for my wheelchair which was pretty much just a piece of rubber with a slot in it. I had to get a prescription for a piece of rubber with a slot in it.
So let’s say Cinderella actually gets a pseudotransit ride to the ball. And since this is a fairy tale, let’s even assume the ride shows up on time. Who knows if Cinderella arrives at the ball on time? Because the pseudotransit bus may well first take her to the other side of town to pick up three more cripples and drop them all off before taking her to the ball.
And then there’s that whole midnight curfew issue. Would Cinderella’s prearranged return pseudotransit ride arrive on time for her to make a discreet exit and save herself all that pumpkin embarrassment? There was one thing those of us who were Chicago pseudotransit captives could always count on. If the party was rockin’ and you didn’t want to leave, pseudotransit always showed up on time to take you home. But if the party sucked and you couldn’t wait to leave, pseudotransit would be five hours late.
We all know the ball was a blast so Cinderella may have escaped on time. But considering how much was at stake with punctuality in this case, the pseudotransit Gods, with their sadistic sense of humor, probably would send the pseudotransit bus to the wrong address. And by the time it showed up to fetch Cinderella, she’d be just a pumpkin in a wheelchair. Or is it the pseudotransit bus that turns into a pumpkin? I don’t remember how the story goes. It’s been a long time since I was a six-year-old girl.
Screwed out of her one and only chance to hook up with a flawless man who would dedicate his life to taking care of her so she would never have to think for herself, Cinderella would have been steamed. She would have joined up with all us other steamed cripples at the time who took to the streets demanding full access to public transportation.
Today, crippled Cinderella could get to the ball on the regular city bus. No prescription necessary. And if you think a woman in a wheelchair dressed in a zillion-dollar ball gown would stand out as the biggest weirdo on a big city bus, you’ve obviously never ridden a big city bus.
Monday, July 30, 2012
No Exit
So last week I’m visiting a relative in a nursing home, okay? I say good-bye. I head for the elevator. A white-haired man wearing a tie and a crisp new dress shirt arrives at the elevator. He enters the code using the number pad on the wall above the elevator buttons. You have to know the code if you want to take the elevator. That’s how they keep the inmates from escaping. The elevator opens. The man steps in. I roll in behind him. His face constricts with suspicion. “Are you allowed to be in here?” he says to me.
Dammit! This is what happens when I dare go to nursing homes unaccompanied by a walking person! It’s inevitable that someday I’ll visit someone in a nursing home and they’ll never let me out! A few years back I visited a friend in a nursing home and as I was leaving, the rent-a-cop security guard at the front door asked me where I was going. I knew what he was implying. I told him it was none of his damn business where I was going, because I wasn’t. He refused to open the door until a nurse came down and vouched for me.
The guy with the new dress shirt obviously did not have a discerning eye when it comes to cripples. Otherwise he would have known I wasn’t an inmate. Didn’t he see my Dave Brubeck t-shirt? When you land in a nursing home wearing nothing but a hospital gown, they give you a new wardrobe, fished fresh from their rummage sack. But you never get anything as cool as a Dave Brubeck t-shirt. You get sweat pants and washed out, bedraggled t-shirts bearing old advertising catch phrases like I’M A PEPPPER.
And I use a motorized wheelchair, too. That should have been a dead giveaway that I was the kind of cripple who could be trusted riding elevators. The inmates all sat in their standard-issue wheelbarrows, those one-size-fits-nobody hospital wheelchairs.
And if nothing else, the white-haired man definitely should have known that I wasn’t an inmate by the fact that I didn’t’ smell like a horse. In nursing homes, cripples only get two showers a week. If I only got two showers a week I’d smell like a horse.
Before I visit a nursing home alone again, I’d better have my lawyer draw up some sort of notarized affidavit confirming that I am indeed a free cripple, in case I am ordered to show my papers.
Or maybe I’ll always bring along someone who can walk. They don’t hassle me in nursing homes when Rahnee is with me. Rahnee walks funny, but at least she walks, which gives her that certain legitimacy I lack.
At the very least, if I ever visit a nursing home alone again, I’ll first notify my closest, most trusted associates. And I’ll tell them if they don’t hear back from me by sundown, please call the SWAT team.
Dammit! This is what happens when I dare go to nursing homes unaccompanied by a walking person! It’s inevitable that someday I’ll visit someone in a nursing home and they’ll never let me out! A few years back I visited a friend in a nursing home and as I was leaving, the rent-a-cop security guard at the front door asked me where I was going. I knew what he was implying. I told him it was none of his damn business where I was going, because I wasn’t. He refused to open the door until a nurse came down and vouched for me.
The guy with the new dress shirt obviously did not have a discerning eye when it comes to cripples. Otherwise he would have known I wasn’t an inmate. Didn’t he see my Dave Brubeck t-shirt? When you land in a nursing home wearing nothing but a hospital gown, they give you a new wardrobe, fished fresh from their rummage sack. But you never get anything as cool as a Dave Brubeck t-shirt. You get sweat pants and washed out, bedraggled t-shirts bearing old advertising catch phrases like I’M A PEPPPER.
And I use a motorized wheelchair, too. That should have been a dead giveaway that I was the kind of cripple who could be trusted riding elevators. The inmates all sat in their standard-issue wheelbarrows, those one-size-fits-nobody hospital wheelchairs.
And if nothing else, the white-haired man definitely should have known that I wasn’t an inmate by the fact that I didn’t’ smell like a horse. In nursing homes, cripples only get two showers a week. If I only got two showers a week I’d smell like a horse.
Before I visit a nursing home alone again, I’d better have my lawyer draw up some sort of notarized affidavit confirming that I am indeed a free cripple, in case I am ordered to show my papers.
Or maybe I’ll always bring along someone who can walk. They don’t hassle me in nursing homes when Rahnee is with me. Rahnee walks funny, but at least she walks, which gives her that certain legitimacy I lack.
At the very least, if I ever visit a nursing home alone again, I’ll first notify my closest, most trusted associates. And I’ll tell them if they don’t hear back from me by sundown, please call the SWAT team.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Crippled Beggars
I don’t know why, but I used to get all worked up whenever I saw crippled beggars on the streets. I felt embarrassed to the point of agitation. I felt resentful. I wished to hell they’d go away.
But really, when I think about it, crippled begging is like gay marriage. There’s no reason to feel threatened because it’s no skin off me.
I was probably worried about image— the image of cripples in general and, by association, me. I didn’t want the masses to see all cripples as beggars. But that’s stupid because if that’s the case, then there are countless other genres of cripples I should be equally worked up about. Like for instance, how about those crippled shot putters who heave steel balls from their wheelchairs in the cripple Olympics? I wouldn’t want the masses to think that everybody in a wheelchair can or even wants to heave a steel ball. I should feel more threatened by the false expectations potentially forced upon me by that image because no matter what weird twists my future may take, I’m far more likely to end up a crippled beggar than a crippled shot putter.
I’m still uneasy with the concept of crippled begging. I think that’s because it isn’t really commerce. There’s no exchange of goods. But even when there is, like when blind people sell pencils, I still don’t feel better about it. It’s not like a sighted person rounds the corner thinking “My kingdom for a pencil” and suddenly, as if a gift from the pencil Gods, there appears a blind beggar. Those are pity pencils. I suppose one could argue that crippled beggars are selling a service, the service of reminding the rest of us how lucky we are that we’re not crippled beggars. Humans seem to need that a whole lot more than we need pencils.
But I no longer resent crippled beggars for doing what they do because hell, they’re just moonlighting. They’re just trying to make a few extra bucks. Cripples who have jobs with 401ks and tenure don’t go out begging as a hobby. Crippled beggars live in the economic strata where when you take mental inventory of assets you might be able to quickly liquefy, you think about body parts. How much can I get for a kidney? A pint of blood? Hair? Bone marrow? Hell, if the tooth fairy was for real, I bet when times got especially rough, crippled beggars would yank out teeth using a pliers and a shot of whiskey as anesthetic. Just a few teeth at a time. They have to manage their assets strategically.
Cripples who are dirt poor have to be real creative. I knew a guy who supplemented his social security by making and selling sculptures of horse heads. They looked like giant knight chess pieces. He made them with a horse head mold, so he cranked them out fast. Peddling these sculptures probably got him by for a little while, until he ran out of aunts and uncles and cousins to sell them to.
So screw it. Crippled beggars are a part of the cripple spectrum and the collective cripple image. And it ain’t gonna change unless all the other cripples get together a hire some powerhouse New York image consultants to conduct a crippled beggar genocide.
But really, when I think about it, crippled begging is like gay marriage. There’s no reason to feel threatened because it’s no skin off me.
I was probably worried about image— the image of cripples in general and, by association, me. I didn’t want the masses to see all cripples as beggars. But that’s stupid because if that’s the case, then there are countless other genres of cripples I should be equally worked up about. Like for instance, how about those crippled shot putters who heave steel balls from their wheelchairs in the cripple Olympics? I wouldn’t want the masses to think that everybody in a wheelchair can or even wants to heave a steel ball. I should feel more threatened by the false expectations potentially forced upon me by that image because no matter what weird twists my future may take, I’m far more likely to end up a crippled beggar than a crippled shot putter.
I’m still uneasy with the concept of crippled begging. I think that’s because it isn’t really commerce. There’s no exchange of goods. But even when there is, like when blind people sell pencils, I still don’t feel better about it. It’s not like a sighted person rounds the corner thinking “My kingdom for a pencil” and suddenly, as if a gift from the pencil Gods, there appears a blind beggar. Those are pity pencils. I suppose one could argue that crippled beggars are selling a service, the service of reminding the rest of us how lucky we are that we’re not crippled beggars. Humans seem to need that a whole lot more than we need pencils.
But I no longer resent crippled beggars for doing what they do because hell, they’re just moonlighting. They’re just trying to make a few extra bucks. Cripples who have jobs with 401ks and tenure don’t go out begging as a hobby. Crippled beggars live in the economic strata where when you take mental inventory of assets you might be able to quickly liquefy, you think about body parts. How much can I get for a kidney? A pint of blood? Hair? Bone marrow? Hell, if the tooth fairy was for real, I bet when times got especially rough, crippled beggars would yank out teeth using a pliers and a shot of whiskey as anesthetic. Just a few teeth at a time. They have to manage their assets strategically.
Cripples who are dirt poor have to be real creative. I knew a guy who supplemented his social security by making and selling sculptures of horse heads. They looked like giant knight chess pieces. He made them with a horse head mold, so he cranked them out fast. Peddling these sculptures probably got him by for a little while, until he ran out of aunts and uncles and cousins to sell them to.
So screw it. Crippled beggars are a part of the cripple spectrum and the collective cripple image. And it ain’t gonna change unless all the other cripples get together a hire some powerhouse New York image consultants to conduct a crippled beggar genocide.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Minimalism
A revolution is coming! There’s no stopping it now! Soon will dawn that glorious day for which cripples of many generations have longed—the day when in every town and city, every village and hamlet, cripples will at long last be treated with the least possible amount of respect and dignity!
And oh what a joyous day that will be! It will be celebrated for decades to come as a day of true advancement for cripples! And it’s coming real soon. Because there’s currently a bill in Congress known as the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act (H.R. 3086). The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 allows the Department of Labor to grant employers exemptions from paying minimum wage to certain cripples within their employ. And a whole lot of businesses, both for profit and not, take the government up on that sweet deal. I looked into one of those businesses once. It was in Indiana and they paid one of their cripples 11 cents an hour.
But this bill will put an end to all those exemptions. So huzzah and hosanna! Soon cripples will live in a world where the prospect of scratching for the scraps of subsistence on the lowest economic rung will no longer be just a shimmering, tantalizing dream! Young criplets will no longer suffer from delusions of adequacy!
This has been a long time coming! The minimalist movement among cripples has been speaking out against this injustice for many, many years. I remember attending one of their annual rallies at the Washington Monument. What an inspiring day it was. Our raucous chant reverberated through the canyons of power: WE DEMAND THE MINIMUM! One cripple proudly and defiantly waived his homemade sign that proclaimed: I AM (JUST BARELY) A MAN! And I’ll never forget the arousing speeches. I practically rose from my wheelchair and roared when the cripple at the podium declared “I have a dream that someday, we will aaaaaallll be able to drink from the sweet, sweet fountain of the bare basics!”
That day is almost here! The Fair Wages Act will end all minimum wage exemptions just three years after enactment! But first it has to pass through the House and Senate. But before that can happen, it has to pass out of committee, which probably won’t happen in this Congress or the next or the next. The whole idea is still too much of a hot potato.
But when it finally does become the law of this land, cripples will ascend to our new social position, basking at the bottom of the heap.
And oh what a joyous day that will be! It will be celebrated for decades to come as a day of true advancement for cripples! And it’s coming real soon. Because there’s currently a bill in Congress known as the Fair Wages for Workers with Disabilities Act (H.R. 3086). The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 allows the Department of Labor to grant employers exemptions from paying minimum wage to certain cripples within their employ. And a whole lot of businesses, both for profit and not, take the government up on that sweet deal. I looked into one of those businesses once. It was in Indiana and they paid one of their cripples 11 cents an hour.
But this bill will put an end to all those exemptions. So huzzah and hosanna! Soon cripples will live in a world where the prospect of scratching for the scraps of subsistence on the lowest economic rung will no longer be just a shimmering, tantalizing dream! Young criplets will no longer suffer from delusions of adequacy!
This has been a long time coming! The minimalist movement among cripples has been speaking out against this injustice for many, many years. I remember attending one of their annual rallies at the Washington Monument. What an inspiring day it was. Our raucous chant reverberated through the canyons of power: WE DEMAND THE MINIMUM! One cripple proudly and defiantly waived his homemade sign that proclaimed: I AM (JUST BARELY) A MAN! And I’ll never forget the arousing speeches. I practically rose from my wheelchair and roared when the cripple at the podium declared “I have a dream that someday, we will aaaaaallll be able to drink from the sweet, sweet fountain of the bare basics!”
That day is almost here! The Fair Wages Act will end all minimum wage exemptions just three years after enactment! But first it has to pass through the House and Senate. But before that can happen, it has to pass out of committee, which probably won’t happen in this Congress or the next or the next. The whole idea is still too much of a hot potato.
But when it finally does become the law of this land, cripples will ascend to our new social position, basking at the bottom of the heap.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
The Privileged Class
It was my 55th birthday and I wanted to be carded. We were on the road. So we went to Cracker Barrel. That seemed like the kind of interstate highway chain that would offer senior discounts.
But they didn’t and thus I missed my once-in a-lifetime chance to celebrate my first day as a member of the privileged class. I told the waitress of my disappointment so she took pity and gave me a free brownie with whipped cream and a candle stuck in it for my birthday.
That was a year ago and so far this senior discount stuff has been a huge bust. I think I’ve saved about $6. Senior discounts are more like consolation prizes. They’re society’s why of saying, “Look, we’re sorry we can’t do anything to halt the mercilessly relentless pace of the passage of time and the process of decay, but we can offer you 10 per cent off on the breaded veal cutlet special between 2:30 and 4:30 on Wednesdays.” It’s not much of a trade but you take it anyway because you can either resign yourself to the inevitability of decline and decay and pay full price for breaded veal cutlet to boot, or not.
Humans don’t look forward to turning 55 the same way we look forward to turning 21. There’s no market for age 55 fake IDs. So far, I’ve never been approached outside a restaurant by a 40 year old who said, “Psssst. Hey buddy, can you help a brother out? Can you go in and order me a breaded veal cutlet for 10 per cent off? I could do it myself because I’m old enough. Really I am! But I lost my ID.”
They don’t offer senior discounts on stuff that costs a lot, like gas or an appendectomy. If that was the case then we’d be talking some real money and senior discounts might be something to get excited about. There ought to be a law making senior discounts mandatory on everything. Because with the way some republicans are trying to fuck with Medicare and Medicaid, that may be the only way to get by. And the discounts ought to be escalating. The older you get the bigger the discounts get, so like if you’re 110 and you order breaded veal cutlet the restaurant pays you. It’s only fair!
But I’m sure someone will challenge that. It’s the ones who always cry about reverse discrimination that will be the first to object. They particularly resent people like me because I’m a privileged character squared. I get senior discounts on top of all my cripple discounts. Cripples get stuff like free parking and tax breaks. But why should we get special privileges just because we’re crippled, they ask? Everything we get they should get, too. They envy and covet everything that comes with the cripple lifestyle, except the part about being crippled.
So I won’t be surprised if they mount a Supreme Court challenge to the Constitutionality of senior discounts. They’ll do it in the name of their ancestors, who were brought to this country from across the ocean and forced to pay full price for breaded veal cutlet. It will begin with protests. A young, white man will enter a restaurant, order breaded veal cutlet and demand 10 per cent off. He’ll be rejected and ejected. But, inspired by the lunch counter protests of the civil rights era, the protestors will keep coming in waves. Another will enter and order breaded veal cutlet and so on. And then another. And then another.
When the Supreme Court strikes down senior discounts, these freedom fighters will dedicate themselves to wiping out all the unfair advantages bestowed upon the privileged class. Next, they’ll go to the movies and demand to pay the same ticket price as an 11 year old.
But they didn’t and thus I missed my once-in a-lifetime chance to celebrate my first day as a member of the privileged class. I told the waitress of my disappointment so she took pity and gave me a free brownie with whipped cream and a candle stuck in it for my birthday.
That was a year ago and so far this senior discount stuff has been a huge bust. I think I’ve saved about $6. Senior discounts are more like consolation prizes. They’re society’s why of saying, “Look, we’re sorry we can’t do anything to halt the mercilessly relentless pace of the passage of time and the process of decay, but we can offer you 10 per cent off on the breaded veal cutlet special between 2:30 and 4:30 on Wednesdays.” It’s not much of a trade but you take it anyway because you can either resign yourself to the inevitability of decline and decay and pay full price for breaded veal cutlet to boot, or not.
Humans don’t look forward to turning 55 the same way we look forward to turning 21. There’s no market for age 55 fake IDs. So far, I’ve never been approached outside a restaurant by a 40 year old who said, “Psssst. Hey buddy, can you help a brother out? Can you go in and order me a breaded veal cutlet for 10 per cent off? I could do it myself because I’m old enough. Really I am! But I lost my ID.”
They don’t offer senior discounts on stuff that costs a lot, like gas or an appendectomy. If that was the case then we’d be talking some real money and senior discounts might be something to get excited about. There ought to be a law making senior discounts mandatory on everything. Because with the way some republicans are trying to fuck with Medicare and Medicaid, that may be the only way to get by. And the discounts ought to be escalating. The older you get the bigger the discounts get, so like if you’re 110 and you order breaded veal cutlet the restaurant pays you. It’s only fair!
But I’m sure someone will challenge that. It’s the ones who always cry about reverse discrimination that will be the first to object. They particularly resent people like me because I’m a privileged character squared. I get senior discounts on top of all my cripple discounts. Cripples get stuff like free parking and tax breaks. But why should we get special privileges just because we’re crippled, they ask? Everything we get they should get, too. They envy and covet everything that comes with the cripple lifestyle, except the part about being crippled.
So I won’t be surprised if they mount a Supreme Court challenge to the Constitutionality of senior discounts. They’ll do it in the name of their ancestors, who were brought to this country from across the ocean and forced to pay full price for breaded veal cutlet. It will begin with protests. A young, white man will enter a restaurant, order breaded veal cutlet and demand 10 per cent off. He’ll be rejected and ejected. But, inspired by the lunch counter protests of the civil rights era, the protestors will keep coming in waves. Another will enter and order breaded veal cutlet and so on. And then another. And then another.
When the Supreme Court strikes down senior discounts, these freedom fighters will dedicate themselves to wiping out all the unfair advantages bestowed upon the privileged class. Next, they’ll go to the movies and demand to pay the same ticket price as an 11 year old.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)