Living la Vida Cripple

Being crippled can be a tremendous gift for some people because, if you play your cards right, it can give you an ironclad excuse for sitting on your ass and doing nothing. And that’s all some people want out of life.

You know the type of people I’m talking about. I’m talking about the slackers. I’m talking about the stoner types, both literally and figuratively. They’d just as soon lie around on the couch all day and watch TV  and/or play video games and eat chips. Some people love having an excuse for not doing anything because they’re terrified of failing so if they don’t try to do anything they won’t fail at anything. So if they have an excuse for not doing anything then they can feel content and satisfied because they can tell themselves and others that they would’ve succeeded at a lot of stuff if they could’ve but they couldn’t so it’s not their fault.

And if you’re crippled, you can use it as an excuse for not doing just about anything if you want to. You can probably collect Social Security and not work. If you hustle enough, you might even score a space in public housing for yourself with super discount rent. Of course you won’t have much money left for anything else but hell, who’s counting? Some things are more important than money, eh?

And it’s not really accurate to say that cripples situated thusly do nothing. It takes effort to acquire such a lifestyle. Stuff like Social Security and public housing don’t just falleth from the sky. You have to jump through the flaming hoops of applying for them and then duke it out with the bureaucracies when they initially turn you down. That can be a full time job. It’s a lot easier to become a slacker cripple if you’re rich because you've already got stuff like money and housing. You can skip all the bull shit and go directly to the slacker promised land. No lines, no waiting.

But regardless of the path you take to get there, once you receive that golden excuse, you’re in! You’re living la vida cripple, baby! You can slack in peace. You can even make slacking sound cool, bold and/or lofty. You can say you’re living “off-the grid” or “underground” as a revolutionary act of rebellion against government and corporate surveillance. You can say you’re in “self-exile.” You can call yourself an “expatriate” from the land of the verts (which is short for vertical, which is what I call people who can walk).

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What if Shaq was Crippled?

Whenever I see an extraordinarily large human being, like a lot of football or basketball players, the first thing I say to myself is, “Damn, I sure hope that guy never becomes crippled.”

I can’t help but wonder what it would take to haul some guy who’s seven-feet tall and upwards of 300 pounds in and out of bed if he became as crippled as Christopher Reeve. I mean, it’s hard enough for me to find people to haul my crippled ass in and out of bed. And I’m just an average-size guy.

What about Shaq? I see that massive guy doing all the commercials he does and I can only shake my head and hope like hell for his sake that he never becomes crippled. He’d have to round up a crew of people just to lift one of his monster-ass feet into bed. Hauling his entire carcass in and out of bed would be a job for the Army Corps of Engineers. Because I don’t think that you could budge him one inch using one of those crank lifts with a sling hanging on it like a lot of cripples use. That thing would blow a gasket. He’d have to have something custom made. He probably has to have a lot of things custom made, like his shoes, furniture and condoms. To get lifted, he’d have to rig up some kind of crane system with heavy-duty pulleys and all that. And what kind of place would Shaq have to live in in order to have room for a device like that? He’d have to move into an airplane hangar.

But at least Shaq is rich. He can buy an airplane hangar if he wants to. And he can afford to have stuff custom made. It’s a helluva lot easier being crippled when you’re rich. What if there was a guy as big as Shaq who was both crippled and broke ass? He’d really be screwed.

And what about sumo wrestlers? What if one of them became as crippled as Christopher Reeve? How would you haul a crippled sumo wrestler in and out of bed? It would take a whole bunch of other sumo wrestlers.

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Separation of Church and State at the Sam Houston Institute of Technology or the All- Crippled Nativity Scene

When I look back on the years I spent in the 1970s as an inmate at a state-operated boarding school for cripples, which I affectionately refer to as the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (SHIT), I realize there must’ve been a time when one of those litigious atheists sued the place.

Because on Sunday afternoons a priest came in and held Catholic mass upstairs in one of the classrooms. And yes, I attended. But I was only about 14 at the time so gimme a break. I hadn’t quite shaken off the shackles of Catholic guilt.

But then suddenly the priest stopped coming and we were told there wouldn’t be any more masses. Rather than being pissed, I felt relieved. Now I know that I felt that way because the only reason I attended the classroom mass was because I didn’t have an excuse not to. If I was at home on a Sunday, I had a good excuse not to go to mass or Sunday school or any of that stuff because the church had stairs so God forgave me for not going. But at SHIT, all I had to do to attend mass was take an elevator upstairs so Catholic guilt kicked in.

Now it seems clear to me that the only thing that could’ve stopped the priest from coming was an assertion of the separation of church and state. I never went to mass again. So I’m grateful to the litigious atheist for restoring my precious get-out-of-going-to- mass-for-free card and thus hastening my break from Catholicism. I’m confident that break would have happened eventually anyway, but the sooner the better.

However, I also have to say that I’m glad the atheist didn’t strike any sooner than they did because if they did I never would have had a religious experience I had at SHIT that I still cherish. We all gathered in the gym for an assembly. It must’ve been around Christmas because the curtain on the stage opened and revealed various other inmates forming an all-crippled nativity scene. There was Joseph in a wheelchair, a blind Mary, a one-armed angel, etc. There were various crippled barnyard animals. This deaf kid named Teel had on a brown coat with a long brown tail pinned on it so I guess he was supposed to be a donkey. And this polio kid named Randall Harvey who was sitting next to me in the audience leaned over and said, “Look at Teel up there on stage making an ass out of himself.”

I got to see an all-crippled nativity scene without taking heavy drugs. Very few people can say that. It makes me feel special.

It was so wonderfully bizarre. If the litigious atheist had prevailed sooner it would never have happened. Or maybe the cops would’ve raided the gym and shut the nativity scene down. In that case, I would’ve been pissed. 



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As Tough as a Cooped-Up Cripple

I see all these people running off to Disneyland and water parks and shit or cramming themselves into crowded bars even though it might make them get sick and die and part of me wants to laugh. I shake my head and say to myself, “Man, these poor saps sure would make lousy cripples.”

Those people aren’t nearly tough enough to succeed at being a cripple. I mean, after just three months of living the cooped up life they’re so desperate to bust out that they can’t even think straight. But hell, a lot of cripples live the cooped up life for years on end. It might be that they’re cooped up because they’re too crippled to go very far but it could be for a lot of other reasons, too, like maybe they’re too broke ass to go very far.  A lot of cripples are really broke ass and being broke ass will sure as hell keep you cooped up, even if you’re not crippled.

And Lord, some cripples are not just housebound but bedbound. Staying in bed all day may not sound so bad. That’s how some people spend their vacations. It’s the kind of life to which a lot of people think they aspire. But it gets old fast. Staying in bed all day is not for people with a weak constitution. Those bedbound cripples are the toughest cripples of all. They have to be. They have to figure out how to stay engaged and entertained while staying in bed (alone). Not all of them succeed. Some get sucked up into the undertows of addiction that drain dry the mind and spirit, such as watching  porn, dumb sitcom reruns, game shows and/or Christian  and right wing TV. But a lot of bedbound cripples persevere through boredom and with enough trial and error practice, they get the hang of staying in bed all day and still feeling sharp.

They’re the best equipped to win the cooped up marathon. They’ve been training for it for a long time. When they see on TV all those people at Disneyland and water parks and in bars they probably shake their heads and laugh about what wimps those people are.

It’s survival of the toughest.

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The Right to be a Masochist

I saw an ad for a gym that says they roll out the red carpet for cripples. They say their staff will pay special attention to any cripple that asks. They will help cripples who sign up with their gym develop a regular workout routine which will in turn help the cripple overcome feelings of anxiety, depression and isolation.

Well I guess it’s mighty nice of whoever runs that gym to try to make cripples feel welcome like that. But no thanks. In fact, I’m sorry to say it has the opposite effect on me. If I was looking to sign up with a gym, after seeing that ad I would definitely avoid that one.

First off, it’s pretty much a moot point because am not now nor have I ever been a “workout” type of guy. I don’t get it. It seems masochistic to get a big rush out of doing a bunch of pushups. I thought doing pushups was supposed to be punishment. If you piss off your drill sergeant he tells you to go do a thousand pushups. Maybe doing pushups makes you feel good about yourself in the same way you feel good about yourself when you eat fresh fruit for breakfast instead of cold pizza. What you really feel is the satisfaction of not feeling guilty. Maybe for some people pleasure is defined as the absence of guilt.

And if I was looking for an antidote for anxiety, depression and isolation, I sure wouldn’t go to a gym. I’d probably go to an orgy or something.

But let’s say, just for the sake of giving me something to write about, that there was a massive explosion somewhere in a distant galaxy that rearranged all matter in the universe so radically that I might conceivably develop a vague inkling to sign up with a gym. I would still stay away from that gym that’s so eagerly courting cripples for fear of feeling too welcome. I’d be afraid that the minute I rolled in I’d be swarmed over by unctuous trainers bent on helping me overcome my feelings of anxiety, depression and isolation. I mean of course I feel anxious, depressed and isolated sometimes. Who the hell doesn’t? But it’s not just because I’m crippled. It’s not like if I was suddenly cured I wouldn’t feel any of those things anymore. Every single uncrippled person finds plenty that makes them feel anxious, depressed and isolated. But when they come into a gym, nobody thinks they're duty-bound to help them overcome all that.

I would want to just get in, quietly torture myself in peace and get out, just like everybody else at the gym. Cripples can be masochists, too, you know.

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Special Needs?

Recently, I felt compelled to look myself straight in the eye and ask myself a sobering question: Am I a person with special needs?

It grates on me when people refer to cripples that way. I guess what I don’t like about special needs is it sounds too much like an apology. It makes us sound like we’re suffocatingly needy. On the other hand, it grates on me just as much when people do the opposite and say that cripples are just like other people. But the vast majority of other people don’t pee and or eat through a tube, like a lot of cripples do. So why should cripples try to pretend that we’re not different, unless being different is something to be ashamed of?

So maybe the fact that I ride around in a motorized wheelchair and pay other people to wipe my butt really does mean I am indeed a person with special needs. Maybe I ought to just admit and embrace it.

But upon further reflection, I determined that special needs doesn’t apply to me. Because first, it’s usually only used when talking about children. Nobody talks about special needs adults, unless it’s someone with something like Down syndrome, where it’s still considered okay to look upon them as a child. Children can be forgiven for having special needs. It’s not their fault. They’re innocent. But when you’re as old and hairy as I am and you still have special needs, it’s about time you got over it. Needy has become greedy.

I also determined why that special needs term grates on me. It’s because in order for something to be considered special, it must be compared to some norm. So what are normal human needs? They would be the needs that humans have. And some humans need to do things like pee and or breathe through a tube or pay other people to wipe their butts. So if that’s what they need and they’re human, then it’s a normal human need. It only becomes special if having this need somehow calls your status as human into question. To need beyond a certain standard allotment is to be extraordinarily needy.

Humans are a needy bunch. What’s wrong with that?

So I don’t want to call anybody a person with special needs. I just want to call everybody a person with needs. But that would be redundant.



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It’s as if People Who Have no Limbs Don’t Exist

There is now a Barbie doll that has a partially amputated leg and among her accessories is a removable prosthesis. 

Some people think this is a big deal for cripples. Now that the Mattel company has officially acknowledged our existence, that means that we, as a crippled people, have arrived at the Promised Land.
Well far be it from me to be a buzzkill, but I’m not satisfied. I don’t think this paltry gesture is nearly good enough. Our journey as cripples is not complete. We have not arrived. As long as Barbie is missing just one limb, we are, at best, one fourth of the way there.

I’ll admit that a 1.5 legged Barbie is small step forward. But we can’t let it stop there. I can’t help but think about the all the cripples I’ve known who are missing more than one limb. Hell, I’ve known many cripples who have no limbs at all and they’re all fine upstanding people. Well, they’re all fine people, anyway. But what about them? Aren’t they our brethren? They deserve their chance to stand up and be counted. Well, they deserve their chance to be counted, anyway.

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We live in a society where it’s as if people who have no limbs don’t exist. And I for one am sick of it! And Barbie, whether she wants to admit or not, is a powerful agent for change. She makes a fashion statement and millions of people follow. Her status as a global celebrity gives her a unique platform and she cannot shirk her responsibility to use it to lift up the marginalized. And who’s more marginalized than people with no limbs?

So we have to demand that Barbie lead the way. If Barbie wants to truly call herself a cripple ally, she must do more. And the beautiful thing about it is, there’s no need to manufacture a special, limited edition, limbless Barbie. There just needs to be a corporate decree that henceforth, all Barbie’s shall be manufactured with limbs that can be easily jettisoned. That way, whoever is playing with a given Barbie on a given day can just mix and match.

Then Barbie will have done her part.

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