Here are some brief anecdotes involving people with infirmities. I was waiting for the bus, sitting on a newspaper box, kicking the sides rhythmically and insouciantly, and a blind man walked by. He was doing a splendid job of navigating sidewalk obstacles, but my eyes were drawn to his shirt, which featured a garish design and the name HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH in big letters. I had a feeling his friends assured him the shirt was from some cool indie band, so he wears it all the time because he doesn't know any better. I felt bad about that. His friends probably do it to him whenever he does anything that bugs them, and they're probably jerks, so they probably do it all the time. Earlier that day, I was in a diner with some of my friends, who are not jerks. They are nice. Suddenly, a man in a big wheelchair came barrelling through the joint. He rammed into our table, so we moved it to ease his passage. He rolled on by with his posse. Although he was clearly confined to the wheelchair, his musculature did not appear diminished (read: non-spindly). He had a headset with a white tube extending toward his mouth from he could drink. It occurred to me that he could get milkshakes through that tube, and I nearly shat myself. I wanted! I want. Okay. After I got home from the social event to which I took the bus that night, I turned on the television. There was a commercial for the Special Olympics, sponsored by one of those companies with a violently awful name, and it featured a retarded boy in a track suit telling people "this is my back" over and over again. Slowly, the viewers are led to realize that he is a runner and he is talking shit to the other runners. His back is "all (they'll) see" when they race him. I thought about it and decided that he probably shouldn't be talking shit, because someone might say "Oh yeah? Well, you're retarded", and that beats the whole "this is my back" line. He's just leaving himself open to have his feelings hurt.