ASK A GIMP GIRL!

I get oodles of inquiries here at the EarthBound TomBoy and in the everyday world, asking me questions about gimp life. Many of my gimp friends get similar questions. So, it seems we gimps have an opportunity -- nay, a responsibility -- to educate you curious souls who want real insight into how we roll. So, I'm going to run a feature from time to time called "Ask a Gimp Girl!" And away we go...

Q. Aren't you really in it for the parking?

A. Wow, your insight has laser-like accuracy! Incredible! Now that I've been found out, here's the scoop. I was a precocious kid. Many years before I learned to drive, I knew close-in parking was the key to happiness and success in life. So back in the summer of 1972, I had my parents send me away to a medical experimentation laboratory. (We told everyone I was at church camp.) The chief doctor -- who bore a striking resemblance to Marty Feldman -- re-programmed my genetic material to ensure I would contract an autoimmune disease. And, golly gee wilikers, if I didn't come down with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis a year later, and a particularly wicked case at that. The disease ravaged my joints from head to toe leaving behind catastrophic permanent damage. I was using a wheelchair in no time!

Flash forward to my thirties when I bought my first wheelchair-lift van. That's when my "get crippled to get parking" scheme really paid off. I would drive to fun destinations on a whim (i.e., supermarket, doctor, my workplace) and search for accessible parking (called "handicapped parking" by you outsiders). I made sure to have lots of music cassettes with me, so I could listen to my favorite tunes as I circled and circled, scouting for a parking space unoccupied by weekend athletes who'd borrowed their Great-Aunt Tessie's placard.

I recall one particular reconnaissance run when I explained to a motorist that he'd inadvertently parked in the access aisle between two spaces -- the area I needed to deploy my ramp and exit the van. He screamed and called me a word I first heard on my grandpa's Redd Foxx comedy album. That's the day I knew I'd finally arrived into the upper echelon of the parking elite.

Q. Can you have children?

A. So glad you asked. Honestly, there are few things I'd rather do than talk to a complete stranger about the parts of my life that the US Supreme Court says are protected by the First Amendment penumbra of privacy. Why? Because like all gimps, my duty to educate the general public on what it's like to be one of "them people in a wheelchair" trumps all of my personal feelings and needs as a human being.

Now, on to the question. Before I can answer it, however, I have to consult my gimp question de-coder ring. (I got it in a box of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch back in 1976 and it hasn't failed me yet.) Okay, I'll give the ring a spin...Hey, wait just one darn minute! "Can I have children?" is not really the question at all! What you're really asking me is "Can I carry out the act that has been the traditional way of conceiving children?!" Ah, you're a sly one, Mr. Question Asker, that you are.

Okay, I get it. Gimps are not exactly held up as society's ideal of sexual attractiveness -- Push Girls and the occasional fashion model aside. Most of us are pretty much sidelined as benchwarmers in the Big Game of Slap and Tickle. At least that's how you outsiders see it.

Let's see...how can I put this politely? How can I satisfy your longing for knowledge without compromising the gentility of the EBTB blog? Okay, here goes...

If I "can't have children," -- as you put it, Mr. Question Asker -- then I sure have wasted a king's ransom on contraceptives over the years.