Some of my friends, blodgers, and dive buddies have seen my performance of the incredible flying cripple.
My friend Cindy got to see it a few years back. I had cut my right hand trying to catch a wine glass in midair. I was not successful and it required a trip to the emergency room. Fortunately, this was pre-Pelosicare since this also required hand surgery. We were leaving the hand doctor's office and I was rolling downhill. My footrest caught on a lip and my wheelcair stopped. Unfortunately, I obeyed one of Newton's Laws of Motion (A body in motion tends to stay in motion)and I stayed in motion. I had to catch myself with my good hand.
Cindy cried, "Oh! My! God!"
I also demonstrated this feat in Bonaire in September. Freaked out Ashleigh, the Shepherd Rec therapist. No harm. No foul. I didn't even scratch myself.
And then, there was today.
We're experiencing the remnants of tropical storm Ida here in Atlanta. It started raining last night. It was raining when I woke up which made me roll over and go back to sleep. I love sleeping in the rain.
When I finally dragged my crippled ass out of bed, I brewed a pot of coffee and went out to get the paper. The paper dude usually throws it on the driveway. This morning he threw it on the lawn. I hate it when this happens because trying to roll a wheelchair on grass is a pain in the ass. It sucks big time. Wet grass is even worse.
So I rolled off my sidewalk and onto the lawn and when my front casters hit the lawn they stopped. Since they were lower than the rear wheels the entire wheelchair tipped forward and dumped me right onto the wet grass. And leaves. Yep! It was the incredible flying cripple.
On the upside, I was right by the paper. On the downside, I was wet and covered with wet leaves. And, since it was still raining, I was getting wetter by the second.
I somehow managed to get my wheelchair on the sidewalk and my crippled ass back in it. In the process, I lost a shoe. Aaarrrgggghhhhhh! It is not a good idea to roll around in a wheelchair barefoot. In the house it's OK, but outside, there is the chance that it could scrape on concrete. It's happened to me.
So, I had to go back into the house and get another shoe, so I could go back outside and get the shoe that had come off.
After all that crap, I was ready to go back to bed.
Being a cripple ain't easy. It's only reserved for those who can handle it. And when the gummint takes over health care, I can forget about getting good treatment. What the hell. I'm just a cripple. I should just die.
Tongue-in-cheek spokesman for Non Carborundum Illegitimi International, eh?
Posted by: Ron on November 10, 2009 04:27 PMVisualizing that episode in my mind stirred memories of some of my less graceful moments, such as this'n (one of my standard letters to my Mother):
Took the tops out of the bay trees in the back yard. If I do it about every two years, I can keep ‘em in pretty good shape, and the leaf litter ain’t too bad. Charles more or less ignores me when I’m doing any kind of pruning or trimming or raking or mowing. Lies in the magnolia shade and surveys his domain, keeping me safe from roaming herds of various ferocious roaming critters. I haven’t seen a single wildebeest stampede or rampaging elephant pack or killer walruses or anything back there while he’s on guard.
Propped the ladder up against the largest of the trunks of the 6 bays growing in a clump. Got about ¾ of the tops out when the ladder slipped and the branch I was holding to steady myself cracked. So I came down outta there more or less involuntarily and certainly quickly. Amazing how fast my mind worked, too. My body is abandoning me to greater degrees almost daily, but a lot of scenarios flashed thru my head in mid-air. At least one system is still functioning nicely. Not a tremendous fall, around 7 feet or so, but more than guys in their 60s oughta be doin without a lotta reg’lar practice and trainin.
Somehow I managed to kick the ladder so we wouldn’t land together, I threw the bow saw away from me, and as I hit the ground, I tucked and rolled. In the short time available in mid-air, I managed to exercise a large portion of my Anglo-Saxon vocabulary of four-letter nouns, participles, and gerunds. When I got myself to a sitting position and found no evidence of serious arterial bleeding, I trotted the rest of them out and let 'em ride the wind thru the neighborhood.
Charles (whose name, you may recall, is Sir Charles the Especially Cautious) had observed the episode and repositioned himself to ensure his safety. He particularly dislikes loud voices, harsh tones, and evidence of impending violence. Peering around the legs of the patio chairs at me, he concluded that I was not yet deceased and was not apparently exhibiting any intention of making him that way either, so he casually walked over to check me out. Somethin about dogs – when you sit down on the floor or the ground, they come over to see why you’ve entered their stratum. But, after all, we're buddies, so he's understandably interested in my well-being, right?
Ears back, tail down, and eyes narrow, he scoped and sniffed me out. When instead of rebuke or discipline I gave him a standard scritch-scritch on the top of his head and the customary series of staccato thwacks with my open hand on his shoulder, he sat down and asked me, "Man, why you do stuff like that?"
"Hey," I explained, "that was an accident, I assure you. The ladder slipped."
"No, no," he said, shaking his head. "I mean, why do you do all this cutting and chopping and other stuff? It all just grows back anyway."
"Well, if I don’t mow my lawn, the Homeowners’ Association will hire it done and send the bill to me. And if I don’t trim the trees back, they’ll get so big that after a while I won’t even be ABLE to do it. Then one day they’ll come down in a storm and wreck the house, or one of the neighbors’ houses, or take out the power lines . . . somethin."
"That’s silly. I’ve lived here 10 years and never saw anything like that happen."
"Well, you can’t drive . . . in fact, you can’t even leave the yard unless you’re on a leash, so you never get to see storm damage when it happens. You've never seen a tornado in the neighborhood or a hurricane in town for a long time now. What difference does it make to you if I trim the trees and bushes and stuff? Besides, I need the exercise."
"Look . . . as you said, I can’t leave the yard unless I’m with you, so if somethin happens to you, what happens to my mobility? All summer you been hangin around in trees. One of these days you’re gonna really hurt yourself, and then I’m up the creek."
"Oh, well excu-u-u-se me, Mr. Sensitivity." I patted his head anyway as I started to get myself up. My starboard ankle began transmitting an incident report strongly suggesting we take it off duty for the rest of the afternoon. Guess that means I’ll have to put off the bundling and chopping and raking and all that ‘til tomorrow.
Charles walked over to inspect my tools which had flown in several directions as I came unexpectedly down. The pruner and bow saw seemed o.k., I guess, so he walked over to the ladder. I started toward the tools to pick ‘em up and put ‘em away, and he noticed I was being very careful, very slow, in my walk. He looked at the ladder, sniffed it, looked back at me and my slight limp, hiked his hind leg, and made a very clear, definitive, eloquent, succinct statement about my activities . . . all over the ladder.
Even with my master’s degree and 13 years’ experience teaching English, I couldn't have said it any better than that.
Don't forget about Blownstar. You had a nice knot on your head.
Posted by: kerrcarto on November 10, 2009 05:04 PMit would have been a great site if you, as I often do, attempt to get the mail...less than clothed!!!
Either way ... how do you know that your neighbors were not watching with Hilarity!!! (not Hilary)
Posted by: ty Guy/neil on November 10, 2009 05:25 PMKerrcarto - That didn't qualify as an incredible flying cripple moment as I was not moving and fell over sideways. And remember who patched me up. It was worth the fall.
Posted by: Denny on November 10, 2009 05:30 PMThat was great Ron...Oh the conversations we have with our pets
Posted by: Bill on November 10, 2009 06:32 PMAnd when the gummint takes over health care, I can forget about getting good treatment. What the hell. I'm just a cripple. I should just die.
If it comes to that, make sure you take a few of them with you.
Posted by: Ralph Gizzip on November 10, 2009 06:52 PMMy animals are not nearly so eloquent, but I do have a golfish that will eat out of my hand. :)
Posted by: PeggyU on November 10, 2009 08:12 PM*Goldfish. It can probably spell better than I can.
Posted by: PeggyU on November 10, 2009 08:13 PMLaugh, and the whole world laughs with you. Cry, and,....well....uh....there's always the prize in the box of Cracker-Jack.
Posted by: joe on November 10, 2009 08:45 PMHere's another conversation I had with my Aussie Shepherd when he was just a kid (another letter to my mother . . . she thinks I'm a good boy).
Chilly morning today, so I couldn’t go for the customary bike ride. Took Charles for a walk instead. It’s a bit over a mile or so around the block, and if you take any sidetrips it can be a couple miles easy. Today we crossed the old highway in front of the hospital and wandered into one of the few remaining stands of nature left in the area. The sun wasn’t up yet, but it was close, so I could see well enough to keep from falling on my ass, but not details of anything on the ground. Charles suddenly stopped, as dogs often do when checking out new territory, and busily engaged himself in analyzing something he’d found.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, looking up at me.
“It’s dead,” I told him noncomittally.
“Do you always have to be a smartass?” he said, his eyes narrowing and looking back in unspoken disdain. Then after thoroughly sniffing it and trying to get it to move, he snorted and looked at me again. “Well?”
“Hey, you call me a smartass, but you’re the one sniffing the butt end of a dead armadillo.”
“A what?”
“An armadillo.”
He looked down at it again and then back to me. “Thanks a lot,” he said. “That really clears things up.”
I tried to get him to move along, but he’d never seen an armor-plated animal before and it intrigued him, I guess.
“What’s it for?” he finally asked.
“It’s an animal, for chrissake. Whaddya mean, ‘What’s it for?’ What are you for?”
“Well, I won’t dignify that remark with an answer. Just tell me what it does, why it has all this flexible armor on it . . . and skip the sarcasm, o.k.?”
“Actually, I don’t know any good reason for it except that it apparently was a successful evolutionary experiment. What’s a snake for? Or an elephant? Or a bird?”
“You’re asking me? I’m a dog, you jerk. I can’t even read, and don’t tell me about all that educational stuff on TV . . . boring!”
Before I could get an answer formulated, he found another dead critter . . a blackbird. He knew what it was . . . often chases them in the back yard . . . but hadn’t seen one up close before. He looked up with an expression that said he wanted to ask a question but didn’t want to go through the bullshit.
“Dead blackbird,” I said, urging him to leave it alone by tugging on the leash.
“No shit,” he said.
I knew he wanted to ask more, but he didn’t. We got to the convenience store on the corner by the Elks Club and he found what looked like the very old remains of a shrew or field mouse or something. He gently pawed at it for a moment and then told me, “Dead. Right?”
“Yeah, shit happens, and then you die. Everything so far has, anyway. Nothing seems to outlast nature except the process of life itself, and one day it will have to stop, I reckon.”
“So . . . that means you’re gonna die too, right?”
“Yeah, one day.”
“How old are you, anyway?”
“Why? What’s it to ya?”
“Just wondering. But you’re older than I am. I know that.”
“Boy, you got that right . . . by half a century.”
“So that means . . .” and he stopped and looked around for a while. Then we walked on for a hundred yards or so when he finally stopped to say, “Can I have your bedroom?”
And remember who patched me up. It was worth the fall.
Somebody remind me to fall over and get scuffed up next time...
Posted by: CharlieDelta on November 11, 2009 01:58 AMThe tanker in me says you need an upgrade: http://gizmodo.com/343493/extreme-tank-wheelchair-gets-upgraded-rascal-ownersbe-very-afraid
Posted by: Murray on November 11, 2009 05:10 PMLet me guess...the paper was your beloved "constipation urinal" too...should have left it to melt in the yard, charmin is much less trouble, and probably less expensive!
Posted by: Boss429 on November 11, 2009 06:04 PMFive point demerit chit for being on the grass!
Posted by: LisaKay on November 12, 2009 10:34 AM