Editor: Out of respect for Mike Ervin, aka Smart Ass Cripple, we chose this smart ass title. The not-quite-so-bad stuff you can find by Googling Smart Ass Cripple, strangely enough.

A Letter From the Department of Human Services
A letter arrived with a return address of the Department of Human Services. My heart sank, as it always does when a letter arrives with a return address of the Department of Human Services.

Here’s how it feels: Did you ever get a letter from the IRS? Your heart sinks and you’re afraid to open the envelope, right? Because you automatically assume that whatever the IRS wants from you, it ain’t good. Because the IRS never writes just to say, “Thank you for paying your taxes. You are such a wonderful citizen. We wish we had 50 million more just like you.” It’s the same with the Department of Human Services. They never write just to say, “We’re having a wonderful time in Barbados. Wish you were here.”

The Department of Human Services pays the wages of the members of my pit crew. Those are the guys I hire to drag my ass in and out of bed, lift me onto the crapper, do my laundry, etc. Maybe this letter was to inform me that in order to remain eligible, I will now have to be piss tested. A lot of people have to take a piss test in order to avail themselves of certain public services. Let me rephrase that. A lot of POOR people have to take a piss test in order to avail themselves of certain public services, such as people who live in public housing. Rich people never have to take a piss test. And rich people avail themselves of public services as much as anyone. Every time rich people drive down a public street or flush the damn toilet they are availing themselves of public services. When rich people use the public court system to seal the deal on their megamergers, the judge never says, “I’ll be delighted to seal the deal on your megamerger, right after you take a piss test.”

Or maybe the Department of Human Services was writing to inform me that I broke one of their rules. It’s easy enough for them to spy on me. These days there are drones that are the size of a fruit fly. That’s why whenever I see a fruit fly in my house I smash it with a hammer and then burn it and then flush the ashes down the toilet. You can’t be too careful. Maybe a spy drone saw it when one of my pit crew guys clipped my nails. A home health aide once told me she wasn’t allowed to clip nails because that’s a “medical task” to be performed by a nurse. Another home health aide told me she couldn’t put a pill in my mouth for the same reason. So maybe a Department of Human Services spy drone caught one of my pit crew guys putting a pill in my mouth and the letter says I am no longer eligible for services because I broke a rule so now I’ll soon be homeless and friendless and penniless and I’ll freeze to death under a bridge.

After a couple days, I got up the guts to open the envelope. Enclosed with the letter was something that looked like a quiz or something — a list of multiple choice questions. “In order to better serve you,” the letter said, “please complete and return this customer satisfaction survey.”

What the fuck, Department of Human Services! Why do you go around scaring the hell out of people like that? As I read the letter, I bet they watched me through their fruit fly spy drone and laughed their asses off at the look on my face.

Coulda Beena Borted
My dad had three kids with his first wife. None of them were crippled. Then my dad had three more kids with my mom. All crippled. I was the last one to come along so it must’ve been me they were talking about that day back when I was a tiny criplet and my mom overheard one of her in-laws say, “I blame her for this.”

Blame. That word smacked my mom across the back of the head like an irate nun. You never blame someone for doing something good. “I blame YOU for rescuing my infant child from the jaws of that alligator!”

One of the problems with being crippled is that it’s nearly impossible to sneak up on anybody. People always see and or hear us coming. They can even see most cripples coming while we’re still in the womb these days, what with ultrasound and amniocentesis and all.

I was born back in the days when crippled fetuses could still be stealth. We could fly under the radar and wait until the very last minute to spring our crippledness on everybody. Surprise! And by then it was too late! These days, if you catch us coming early, you can abort us. But once we’re born you’re stuck with us. There are no laws allowing you to smother us and start all over, yet.

My mother always swore she never would have aborted me anyway. Crippled or not, she believed her children would become intelligent, sensitive adults who would use their great talents to make the world a better place. Fortunately, she’s not around to read Smart Ass Cripple.

But still, I’ve always been tempted to form an exclusive cripple fraternity called Coulda Beena Borted. It’s a kinship I share with cripples who are born with spina bifida, Down Syndrome, dwarfism, congenital amputations and all the other stuff obstetricians can spot from a mile away. All you quadriplegics and stroke people and those who became crippled beyond the womb would not be allowed to join Coulda Beena Borted. Sorry. You’re not invited to our annual Coulda Beena Borted reunion and picnic. But all conjoined twins are welcome.

But I’m always hesitant to even bring up this abortion shit because I know what will happen. Some right winger will seize it as an opportunity to show that they are really the true friends of cripples. If they were in charge, we wouldn’t have to worry about being aborted. They would tenaciously defend our right to be born.

They’re right about that. No doubt they would guard every crippled fetus like a junkyard dog, right up until the second they are born. After that, you’re on your own, Maxwell. That’s the American way.

Crippled fetuses are much easier to love than actual crippled humans, especially when they’re still in that cuddly phase all fetuses go through —half child half tadpole — with their adorably bulbous bald heads like the Wizard of Oz and their little webbed fingers. Crippled fetuses don’t talk back. But then they’re born and before you know it they get mouthy and start demanding welfare. When they’re born it ruins everything. Their pristine innocence is forever lost. That’s what is meant by original sin.

Therefore, I’ll never follow through on organizing Couda Beena Borted. Because if I do some zealot will hijack a poor future criplet’s ultrasound and turn them into a poster fetus.

Gorilla Suit
Emmanuel was washing my armpits. We were talking about death. (Emmanuel is one of my PAs, which is the acronym I use when referring to the dozens of dozens of people I’ve employed over the last four decades to put on my pants, lift me out of bed, wipe my butt, etc. PA is short for personal assistant. It’s not the best job title. It sounds like I’m some sort of Puff Daddy and these are my dutiful sycophants who walk beside me on sunny days holding my parasol and who arrange my lunch dates with my broker. Some people call those who do this work attendants. But that sounds too zoological. Monkeys have “attendants.” I don’t need someone to watch over me or to flip me a treat when I complete a task.)

Anyway, we were talking about death and I said, “So I told Rahnee when I’m gone, just dump my dead ass in Lake Michigan!” Rahnee’s my wife.

And Emmanuel said, “That’s what I did with my grandmother.” He said he took grandma out onto the pier at Morse Avenue beach at night. And I listened with my eyes wide open in shock because I pictured him in black commando clothes, his dreadlocks flying in the wind, hustling across the deserted beach with a weighty burlap sack flung back over his shoulder. He took grandma up to the railing, he said. Then, he said, he opened the urn and sprinkled her into the lake.

I exhaled. I explained to him that when I said dump my dead ass in Lake Michigan, I meant it literally. I told Rahnee to stuff me in the trunk of the van, drive out to a boat ramp, open the hatch and boot me out.

Now Emmanuel looked at me with wide open shock eyes. But being dumped is the cheapest, most sensible and considerate way for me to go. I hate wakes anyway. They spackle you with makeup and put you on display. And then your loved ones, in their time of smothering grief, are bound by etiquette to suck it up and receive guests like a tea party.

Then everyone watches as they put you in the ground. And they top it off by presenting your battered loved ones with a bill for a zillion dollars. Screw all that. I told Rahnee not to piss away her money on coffins or funerals or burial plots or headstones. Just fill my pockets with lead, dump me in the lake, take the money saved and treat herself to a week in Aruba or something. That’s the way to grieve.

There is one tempting scenario, however, under which I would consider being on public display. I might agree to be waked if, and only if, I am laid out in a gorilla suit. Wouldn’t the wake be lots more fun then? It would sure make things easier on the kids. My posthumous fashion statement could easily go viral and soon everyone would be doing it. There will be a catchy new euphemism for terminal illness. You go to the doctor for your test results and you say, “Give it to me straight, doc.” And the doctor says, “Well, let me put it this way. I think you should get fitted for a gorilla suit.”

Or maybe I’ll have them put a gorilla suit on me before they send me to the crematorium. Those poor people who work in a crematorium. They could use a good laugh.

I might even consider being buried in a plot with a headstone, under one condition. Rahnee has to have her grave right next to mine. And on her headstone must be inscribed I’M WITH STUPID with an arrow pointed at me.

But I don’t know. Those are expensive gags. I should stick with being dumped.

That Which Comes From a Horse’s Ass
I’ve met a ton of blind people in my life. (But actually, when I stop and do the math, I realize that statement is quite untrue. Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that every blind person I’ve met weighed, on average, 150 pounds. It would only take 13.3333333333333333333333333 blind people of that standard stature to compose one ton of blind people. I’ve met a helluva lot more than 13.3333333333333333333333333 blind people. So let me start this again.)

I’ve met several tons of blind people in my life. I believe I can safely state without fear of contradiction that there’s one thing they have in common with the sighted majority: when they go to restaurants and other public establishments, they don’t like there to be piles of horse shit scattered about.

But then again, I could be wrong. Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) seems to know something about blind people that nobody else knows. Perhaps he’s conducted some independent research.

Over the past decade or so, some blind people have started using trained miniature horses rather than dogs to lead them around. These horses are usually about the same size as guide dogs. One of their advantages is that these horses live up to three times as long as dogs.

So last spring, the U.S. Department of Justice issued rules under the Americans with Disabilities Act stating that those with guide horses cannot be denied entry into restaurants and other public establishments. Chaffetz was outraged and slapped onto the DOJ appropriation bill an amendment “to prohibit the use of funds to implement a section of the Americans with Disabilities Act which allows miniature horses to be used as service animals.” Chaffetz wrote that the DOJ stuck small businesses with this job-killing regulation “despite the difficulty (some would say impossibility) of housebreaking a horse…”

Chaffetz is protecting us all from those blind people who are so selfish and full of disregard for others, so warped by bitterness and their wanton sense of entitlement that wherever they go they brazenly leave behind a trail of road apples. Now logic would conclude that if horses couldn’t be housebroken, blind people wouldn’t use them. Because logic would also conclude that however deep Chaffetz’s aversion to encountering piles of horse shit may be, blind people feel that same aversion 10 times deeper. At least Chaffetz can see an upcoming pile, which gives him the option of sidestepping. Blind people may not discover such landmines until it’s too late.

But, like I said, maybe Chaffetz is privy to shocking new information that redefines America’s image of blind people. Maybe he chaired a Congressional hearing on horse shit, where he heard heart-wrenching horror stories from victims of unhousebroken guide horses.

So I asked Chaffetz’s press person to please send me any evidence on which he based his claim. All I received was something from foxnews.com quoting one Angelo Amador as saying, “You cannot train a horse … or housebreak them like you would do with a dog.” Amador is vice president of the National Restaurant Association.

Now I know what my wise old grandmother meant when she told me, “Always remember that there are two kinds of horse shit. There’s the kind God creates, which comes out of horses. And there’s the kind humans create, which comes out of some politicians.”