papa wheelie

Dear i+i:


I have a disability and work in an office. The facilities manager has had to make some alterations (restroom, my work station, etc.) to bring this workplace into ADA-compliance. He's done the work, but it always takes multiple requests and a ton of follow-up. He drags his feet on everything, and it's frankly a real pain to get these things done. It might be worth mentioning here that I've served in the Guard for two tours of active duty in Afghanistan, and an IED took both my legs just above the knee. How can I handle this guy? - Tiptoeing Through the Minefield


I hear you, Hopalong.

First of all - thank you for your sacrifice.

While I have never served in the military myself, since I understand it's pretty much nothing but gay dudes, now. I COMPLETELY identify with your plight. I'm a pretty avid runner, and despite everything I've tried, I still over-rotate pretty bad, especially my right foot. Which leads, you guessed it, to uneven wear on my shoes - the outer edge of my heel wears out way before the inside. I've calculated it, because of my condition - a condition that is no fault of my own, that I am forced to replace my running shoes a full 12% sooner than someone who just happens to have been blessed with better form. Over the course of like 18 months, that's almost a full pair of extra shoes I have to buy.

So. You know. Solidarity with you, brother. Since I'm sure it totally blows for you having to go all suddenly legless. And when you're struggling to wedge your chair through the door the club, I'm sure it gets you a ton of pity-trim. Oh. Hold up. They didn't shoot your dick off or anything, did they? Cause if they did, my advice will be totally way more in the "roll yourself out in front of a delivery truck" vein. I'm gonna go ahead and assume you've got operational manquipment downtown and not outline the reasons life's become a moot exercise you oughtta end ASAP. You know all that. I can only assume, since you're bellyaching about this work sitch, that the squirt gun is loaded with chowder and the trigger's fit for squeezing, if you follow me. If you don't - this is in reference to your cock and balls, and the semen therein. Hope this helps.

And so to business. I will table for now discussion of how totally freaked out I am by stumps. On the few occasions I've had to look at them - like there's one dude at the gym who one diabetes leg shy of a full set that just gives me the goddamn willies every time I see him, like when he's shimmying his way out of the shower or whatever - I am not even kidding when I tell you I get a little lightheaded just looking at 'em. If that makes me a pussy, or like I'm supposed to be insensitive, or whatever then you know what? Fuck you. It's not my fault stumps are gross and everybody knows it. And I will further set aside my curiosity regarding amputee porn, which I'm not sure you would necessarily know more about than anybody else, just because you've recently become qualified to star in it. Which if you have, totally not judging at all. Just, you know, not my scene.

But so you're at work. You're trying to get shit done - you don't need some fuckwad giving you hassles. Here's what you do, man: you stand (figuratively) tall and you let him know that you are VERY NEARLY HUMAN and that you deserve the same level of respect he would give a centaur, say, or a monkey android. The days, awesome though they may have been, when we would cage "people" like yourself in a freight car lined with straw, under a garish banner with a crude painting of you as a limbless grub kind of a thing, where the yokels could pay a dime to gawp slack-jawed at The Half Man Who Somehow Continues to Live (you'd be in a like a goat fur loincloth and there'd be these two giant cloudy jars with things in there that might be legs - you know, tasteful) - those days? They are OVER! (I'll just let that hang there a sec to gauge how receptive you might be to maybe not letting those days be totally like over-over. No? Nothing? OK. Right - we are DONE with that shit. I knew that. Just, you know, just verifying. Seems like me and you could maybe make some nice coin resurrecting the freak show, but I can see this proposal does not interest you, so I'll just move on. Forget I said anything.)

So you should totally make a like impassioned speech in front of him and everybody else at the office - and then he will be so ashamed, and you will get so much pity from your co-workers it'll be a total win-win for you. Because, man, I'll tell you something: if I could get me some pity, I would never fucking do anything for myself. I'm not talking about not opening doors on my own - I'm talking about not wiping myself. That would be awesome.

Earlier? When I said I was an "avid runner"? That may have been overstating things a little. It might be a little closer to the truth to call me "an obscene fat-ass with stress fractures in my shins due to the monstrous and unstable load of blubber tottering atop my weak-ass little stem-legs". So if I could get somebody to wheel me around all the time that'd be fucking sweet. You don't know how freakin' lucky you are, dude. I wasn't lying about the uneven wear on my shoes, though.

So anyway. You should get up on the table like Sally Field in Norma Rae and get everybody to chant some like super-inspiring thing. Oh. Wait. Table. Might as well ask you to parkour through a construction site, am I right? Headsmack. My bad. Sorry, bud - big time.

No, for real, though. If he brings his lunch from home, and leaves it in the fridge in the break room, you should totally piss in it. Oh, snap. Are you wearing a bag? Are you a catheter kid? Cause if you are, again: super sorry. But also, easier, really - just dump a whole sack of piss in his lunch. Or just REPLACE his lunch with a bag of piss. With a straw taped to it. And a Post-It™ that says: "Tastes like justice, bitch." And time it so that you roll by WHILE he's discovering it, eating his lunch in a super-casual way. I think that would really drive it home - if you were like chowing down on his ham on rye. Or his tuna - whatever he brought. You get the idea, though.

That's your Norma Rae moment, man. That'll get you the doors widened and access ramps, dude. That shit will get you handrails all over fucking everything. I guarantee it. Then you can focus up on rounding up more pity pussy. You're welcome, brother - and I'm joined by a grateful nation as I say:

Dude. If you steal this guy's lunch and replace it with a catheter bag of your piss, you should TOTALLY video that shit. I would laugh my ass off watching that. As would citizens across this great land.