CIRIV

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Pretending to be Handicapped for a Day

My brother has hemiplegic cerebral palsy, and he’s a total dick about it. He’s always like, “Oh, I’m crippled so I can’t do the dishes,” or he’ll just blow all of his disability checks on video games and take-out food. For two decades I’ve been secretly jealous of him, yearning for all that extra attention, free stuff, and lowered expectations. I was so envious I hijacked a wheelchair from a loading dock when I was six years old. I contorted my hands and feet and drove it around like I owned that motherfucker, just to see what it was like. People were smiling at me and waving; it was like being a celebrity.

Since then my curiosity has only intensified, until one day when I realized: I’m an adult now. I don’t need tosteal a wheelchair to take a peek into the glamorous world of the physically disabled. I can simply rent one with my credit card! It’d be like the time Tyra Banks wore a fat suit to reveal that obese people are really just attention hogs.

The first step was to call up my brother to get the handicapped low-down. The most annoying thing, he told me, is when people refer to him as “handicapped.” He also said he blocks out all of his shitty experiences with strangers. Therefore his perception is that most people are either curious or overly nice. I couldn’t wait to be confined to my go-go seat and paint the town disabled.

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