Disabilities

You see them everywhere, handicapped parking spaces at the mall, priority seating on trains, elevators, those "kneeling" buses, Kmart--every little thing we provide for people with disabilities. But I don't think people really understand the diverse nature of disabilities. There are disabilities that everyone knows about like having no legs, having no arms, or having no radiator fluid, but there are so many more that we don't even think about.

Having six watches on your arm is one of them. Can you imagine how heavy that would be? I guess it wouldn't be that heavy with those loser "athletic" watches that are made of plastic with bands made of rubber, but with real watches, the shiny ones made out of metal that have links you can take out to make it your size and a spinny ring thing with numbers on it with no apparent purpose but for twisting over and over again to hear that really sweet clicky sound it makes, that would really suck.

And what about the guy who is cursed to have to live without the ability to pour liquids from a pitcher? You know, the guy who tries to do it but the liquid doesn't cascade gently off the lip of the pitcher like an Olympic diver diving into a pool but instead somehow creates these really strong molecular bonds with the pitcher glass and instead of coming out nicely, the liquid sticks to the pitcher and spills down onto the table, his pants, or anywhere other than the cup he was aiming for.

That guy behind the counter who is just really bad at folding up the wrap you just ordered? It happens a lot at my college food court but it's undoubtedly apparent on a worldwide scale. He's that guy (the person is always male) who in the process of trying to roll it up, rips it, and when you eat it all the fillings fall out and the place doesn't have any napkins. I know that by the time I get what's left of my mangled wrap I want to put a bullet in his face and if that's not a disability for him then I don't know what is.

Parallel parking is difficult for many people but the little known disability involves the person who parallel parks perfectly the first time but every time they think they fucked it up so they go at it again and they never get it as well as they had it the first time.

These are real disabilities that we never even consider. We hand out handicapped license plates to old ladies who have to walk with canes, but what about the guy who was born with canes fused to his butt cheeks? What about that guy? We make ramps for people in wheelchairs but what about the guy who's got this really kick-ass wheelchair that can climb steps? How is he ever going to get the attention he deserves when there's never an opportunity for him to show of the nifty stair-climbing feature? It's stuff like this that just sickens me.

But what about the most horrible disability of all? I'm talking about lack of imagination. Picture what it would be like, if you will (or if you can). That army guy who has to get his legs amputated without any anesthetic because the anesthesiologist shot it all up the night before and so the surgeon just tells him to imagine a serene, painless scene in order to keep his mind off the excruciating pain? He's fucked. That kid from the Neverending Story that could save all of Fantasia if he just imagined all the things that had been eaten by the Nothing back again, like that big stone giant that kept saying "they look like big, strong hands, don't they?" Well, that stone guy would have been screwed and so would that princess that kept telling the kid to say her name. Are you getting this!? This is serious stuff we're talking about here.

Anyway, I just think the world needs to know that there's more to disabilities than most people think. Personally I think the guy in the first row who can never get his bag in the overhead storage bin on the airplane and so he holds up every other passenger while he tries to do it needs to be able to sit in the special "fuckhead" section more than an old lady with bad knees needs bars for her to grab onto in order to sit on the toilet.

But that's just me.