Take This Social Security and Medicaid and Shove it

I saw a weird poker game on one of those obscure sports channels buried on cable in the wee hours of the morning. It was called the Social Security and Medicaid Championship Tournament.

The contestants were a blind guy, two guys in wheelchairs and a Down Syndrome woman. The grand prize was that the winner got enough money to be able to tell both Social Security and Medicaid to fuck off.

Because if you’re a cripple who needs to collect Social Security and/or Medicaid to survive, you have to be broke ass and stay broke ass. If you start making much money at all, you get kicked off because in the eyes of the law you don’t need Social Security and Medicaid to pay for all your shit anymore because you have money now so you can pay for it all yourself.

But that’s like being pushed off of a cliff because being crippled is expensive as hell. You  need things uncrippled people don’t have to worry about like wheelchairs or you may need to pay someone to help you take a shower or drag yourself in and out of bed. And you have to figure out a way to pay for all that. So just because you’re making money doesn’t mean that you’re still not broke ass and you don’t need help paying for all your shit anymore. About the only way for a cripple to suddenly leave all the  public support programs behind and still function is if they suddenly become a millionaire.

In this poker game, the pot was a million dollars. These contestants were the final four. They looked at their cards intensely. The blind guy felt the Braille bumps on his cards. He opened the bidding by throwing in five chips. The Down Syndrome woman and one of the wheelchair guys folded.

But the other wheelchair guy matched the bet. So the blind guy went all in. Not only did he push in all his chips, he also reached in his pocket and took out all his food stamps and threw them on the pile.  Then he revealed his hand. He had three kings. The wheelchair guy only had two pair.

The blind guy leapt up from his chair and raised his fists in triumph. He ripped up his food stamps and threw them in the air.

The cheerleaders did somersaults of joy. Confetti rained down. The band played a version of Take this Job and Shove it. Except the lyrics were Take this Social Security and Medicaid and Shove it.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

The Legendary Neighborhood Autistic Guy

I was pissed off because all the accessible parking spaces were occupied at Trader Joe’s. Whenever all the accessible spots are taken like that, I always suspect that the people clogging them up aren’t entitled to be there because they lack the proper cripple credentials, such as a license plate with the wheelchair stick figure guy on it.

Anyway, that’s why I was pissed off. We had to park on the lower level, which has no accessible parking space. We made do with a regular space. I felt like a commoner. But as I entered the store a guy wearing a Trader Joe’s work shirt and nametag bellowed out, “Welcome to Trader Joe’s!”

This must be the autistic guy I’ve heard so much about, I said to myself. He’s kind of a neighborhood celebrity because he was written up in a local publication because he’s autistic and he works at Trader Joe’s. Our societal opinion of crippledness has advanced to the point where possessing either of those characteristics unto themselves doesn’t make one particularly newsworthy, but when you put together the two, that’s a human-interest feature just dying to be written.

How did I know he was the legendary autistic guy? I mean, autistic people  aren’t immediately obvious. You can see a wheelchair cripple coming from a mile away. And blind people  are a dead giveaway with their white canes and dogs.  But people with autism aren’t as easy to peg. I’m told that some of them are wild eyed and snort a lot. (Or is that Tourette’s people? Or maybe that’s schizophrenics. I get mixed up.) But this guy didn’t display any of that. And he certainly wasn’t wearing a button that said HELLO I’M AUTISTIC.

No, the reason I figured he  must be autistic was because he was so enthused about working at Trader Joe’s.  I know that’s screwed up of me to assume that if a person  is excited to  be working at a place like Trader Joe’s they must be autistic. But really, the only other people that are really enthused to be working at corporate places like Trader Joe’s or  Burger King are people in commercials.

But actually, why is being enthused about what you’re doing such a bad thing? Isn’t that what we all want, to be happy and content as much as possible? I could stand to give myself a break in that regard. I’m always finding myself trying hard to resist enjoying simple things, I guess because I have this dumb idea that enjoying simple things means I ‘m a simple person. I don’t know what prize that attitude will win me in the end.

The autistic guy (alleged) hustled ahead of me and pushed the elevator button. The door opened and he welcomed me in with a swoop of his arm. As we rode up in the elevator, I was star struck to be in his presence, like he was Brad Pitt or something.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Don't Mess with the Allowance Clerk

 

When I was a teenage inmate at a state operated boarding school for cripples, which I affectionately referred to as the Sam Houston Institute of Technology (SHIT), I had a student/work job. I didn’t apply for this job or anything. They just gave it to me.

I was the allowance clerk. Every Friday evening a staff member would receive a bunch of envelopes that looked like miniature manila envelopes and each one had an inmates name written on front and a few coins inside. The staff member would pass out the envelopes to the various inmates and that was their allowance. That was basically the money we spent on the vending machines around SHIT.

Before any of that happened, I went up to the Social Services office every Friday afternoon and fulfilled my duties as allowance clerk. Waiting for me was a metal box full of coins, stacks of those envelopes and a list of every inmate who received an allowance and how much they received. I would write the name on each envelope, drop in the appropriate amount of coins and seal the envelope by licking the adhesive patch under the flap.

Not every inmate got the same amount. Some received as much as a dollar and some only got a quarter. Every inmate had an allowance account that their parents or whoever was their legal guardian put money into. How much they got depended on how much was in their account and how their parent or legal guardian designated that it be distributed.

I was among the ones who weren’t even on my list because we didn’t get any allowance. At first that made me jealous of the kids who received a dollar. I wanted to be one of them. But I came to realize that those kids were the ones everyone referred to as wards of the state. That meant that the state was their legal guardian because their parents were AWOL. So nobody wanted to be like them, even if their allowance was a dollar, because the reason they got a dollar probably was that the state felt sorry for them because if the state didn’t give them vending machine money no one else was going to.

I figured I didn’t get an allowance from SHIT because my mother didn’t establish an account because it wasn’t necessary. She was very present in my life. I went home every weekend and if I needed money for vending machines and such, she gave it to me. I was lucky I didn’t need a SHIT allowance.

 Being the allowance clerk gave me a certain sense of power. If someone pissed me off, I could put a snotty Kleenex or a cock roach in their envelope. And every inmate knew that I knew a deep, dark secret about them (how much allowance they received), so, I could tell the whole world who only received a quarter. But somehow, I never did. I don’t know why. It’s not like I took an oath of secrecy or anything. But nobody ever pushed me to the point where I  wanted to do that. Maybe they all knew better than to mess with the allowance clerk.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

My Inner Heckler

 

 

I have an inner heckler. It’s somewhere out there in the audience. I hear it all the time.

It started riding my ass when I was about 12 years old or so. Its wisecracks aren’t very wise. It says stuff like, “You suck” and, “Don’t quit your day job!”

I hear my inner heckler loudest in those quiet, meditative moments. But I’ve never seen its face because the audience is a black abyss. I’m blinded by all the bright lights shinning on me. That’s how hecklers like him operate. They’re brash and bold as long as they can remain in the dark. They’re anonymous bullies, like those faceless commenters on the internet.

And I don’t think I’m the only one who's being hounded by an inner heckler. I see people watching wrestling, spellbound. I see people wearing those virtual reality goggles and vigorously sword fighting nobody. I see people in churches, surrendering their souls to an invisible deity.

It seems to me that these people are all trying to drown out their inner hecklers. But it’s a futile game. You can’t win. If you pay any attention at all to the inner heckler, it wins because it just wants to distract you.

Please don’t get me wrong. I know heckling can be a good thing sometimes. It can be a constructive force, if done for the right reasons. It all depends on who’s heckling whom. Like for instance, heckling a fascist is always a good thing because then you’re distracting them from being a fascist, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

But other than that, the way to beat a heckler is to not pay any attention to them. So the best thing to do with your inner heckler is to try your best to ignore it and carry on, unless you’re a fascist.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

A Danger to Ourselves and/or Others

Sometimes cripples achieve the dubious status of being considered a danger to ourselves and/or others just simply by being cripples.

People aren’t scared about us being around them for the same reason they are afraid of schizophrenic people or those kinds of cripples. They’re afraid schizophrenic people are going to attack them. They aren’t afraid people who are physically crippled like me are going to attack them. Or maybe they figure if we do attack them, it’ll be no big deal. It’s got to be easy to subdue somebody in a wheelchair if you have to. If a blind person takes a swing at you, all you have to do is back up a step or two and watch them flail away at the thin air.

No, what terrifies people most about cripples like me is their perception of our sheer incompetence and it’s potentially catastrophic  consequences. Any cripple who has ever been accused of being a fire hazard, which is every cripple, knows what I mean. When someone calls us a fire hazard, I guess they think that if a fire breaks out we’ll just sit there clogging up the escape routes and everybody will burn to death. For some reason, they don’t seem to think we’ll be trying to get the hell out of there fast just like everybody else. Or maybe they think we’re not capable of getting the hell out of there fast.

Of all the times I’ve been called a fire hazard, the time I remember most was when I was on a date with a woman many years ago. We were in a movie theater and there wasn’t a wheelchair seating area so I sat in the aisle. Naturally, I’m trying to impress this woman by being all suave and cool and then this punk-ass usher comes up to me and says, “Sir, you can’t sit in the aisle! You’re a fire hazard!” I wanted to kick him square in the balls!

Classifying cripples like me as a danger to ourselves and/or others has been used as an excuse to lock us all up, safely out of everyone’s way. A lot of cripples have ended up banished away in nursing homes and other asylums for everyone’s protection, especially our own. And then everyone else got to go to the movies feeling safe because they're confident that in case of fire, they’d be able to get the hell out of there fast.

But maybe things have gotten a little better because there aren’t as many cripples locked up anymore. And now movie theaters and places like that have wheelchair seating areas. So it’s been a while since anybody’s called me a fire hazard.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Only the Most Deserving

 There’s a big cardboard box right next to the exit of my local grocery store. On the side of the box is a sign urging everyone to support the Chicago Bears Coat Drive by depositing a coat into the box. The sign says the coats will be distributed to “deserving “people.

Deserving? I wonder who deserves to freeze to death and who doesn’t and what criteria is applied to determine who qualifies as deserving.

It seems that people who are physically crippled, like me, at least survive the first cut when it comes to being considered deserving. Or at least that’s the impression I get when I see those commercials soliciting donations for Disabled American Veterans or the Wounded Warrior Project. All the crippled vets in these commercials have physical disabilities that are immediately obvious. like they’re missing limbs or riding around in wheelchairs.

But there are tons of vets who are wounded in war in ways that aren’t physical or obvious. They have PTSD and stuff like that. Hell, I don’t see how anybody could fight in a war and not have PTSD.

These people are as crippled as I am. But I don’t see anyone like them in those commercials. It’s probably because when you’re begging for donations, you don’t want to take time to explain how some cripples don’t look crippled but they really are and thus they are just as deserving (or not) as those whose wounds are obvious. You just want to get straight to the point, so you stick with those whose wounds speak for themselves.

But even among physical cripples, some of us are considered to be more deserving than others. It matters how you became crippled. The most deserving are those who became crippled in some noble way, such as defending our freedom or foiling a bank robbery. That’s why crippled former soldiers and cops are seen as the most deserving of the deserving. Next come people who were born crippled, like me. People are more likely to forgive us for being crippled because we have a certain innocence. We got this way through no fault of our own. But if you became crippled doing something stupid or nefarious, like diving naked into a shallow river or in a botched bank robbery, you automatically join the ranks of the least palatable and sympathetic of cripples.

So, suppose the Chicago Bears only have one coat left and I show up to ask for it at the same time another guy who’s also in a wheelchair and looks just as crippled as I do also shows up to ask for it. If he’s a vet who was wounded on the battlefield, I imagine he’ll get the coat and I’ll get to freeze to death. But if the other person who shows up at the same time doesn’t look  crippled but says they have PTSD, then the last coat will probably go to me. Of course, if that person is also a vet, that might score them enough points toward becoming considered deserving to cancel out my natural advantage. In that case, whoever it is that decides who deserves the coat might have to rip it down the middle and give us each half.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

The Great Purge

 

In this city they recently passed one of those purge laws, just like in the movie.  As a result, all laws were suspended for one day and everybody could do anything they wanted with no consequences.

Many citizens feared a bloody rampage would break out, so they locked themselves in their homes for the duration. But I had more faith in my fellow humans than that, so I went out and about my business, just like it was any other day.

Boy was that a mistake. My day was booked solid. First, I stopped at my friendly neighborhood coffee shop as I often do. Because it’s in an old building there is a step on the front entrance, but I’ve always been able to get into the place because the proprietor always puts out a ramp. But the ramp wasn’t there.

So I knocked on the window until I got the proprietor’s attention. When she came outside, I said to her, “Where’s the ramp?”

She said, “Oh I’m not putting it out today. I have too many other things to do.”

“You can’t do that!” I said. “It’s against the law!”

“What law?” she said and went back inside,

At first, I was furious. But then I realized that on this day, I couldn’t do anything about it. So I swallowed my indignation and went to the bus stop so I could take public transit to my next appointment of the day.

But when the bus arrived the driver opened the door and said, “Sorry, no wheelchairs allowed on the bus today.”

“Why not?” I protested.

“Because I got a schedule to keep,” he said. “And if I stop to pick you up, I’ll be way behind. And besides, you’re a fire hazard. What if the bus starts on fire and everybody has to escape? You’ll clog things up!” He closed the door and drove off.

After that, I just turned around and went home and stayed there until the purge expired. I didn’t feel safe and protected in such a lawless world.

(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)

https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI