I've
been so wrapped up in my petty little 'Oh, my mind is rotting
away, I'm getting jaundice, I haven't got much longer to live,
I'm 30 and I'm no longer Britney Spears" world that I've
been neglecting one of the most important things in life. My
pinball skills have been dashed on a stick of rock by a giant
bird of prey. I haven't played pinball, certainly in months,
probably in years. Oh sure, I've dabbled in the art of computer
pinball, but it's just not the same: real pinball doesn't have a
glitch in it that leaves a hole in the left paddle when you're
randomly slamming the multiballs. I hear voices screaming at me
from all around "Why don't you just go and play pinball you
stupid fuck, instead of whining to us with your problem?"
but I don't want to acknowledge their existence for fear of
labelling my self a nutjob with a twist. You'll get the answer
instead. Ever since I received a sound ass-whuppin from those
deaf, dumb and blind kids, I've been afraid to set foot in the
arcade. I have my dignity to maintain; you have no idea how many
people look up to me in awe. (An equal, if not greater, number
look down upon me with anguish and disgust, but these are not
people whose opinions are valid in this cheese and onion world).
I'm also scared to receive another ass-whuppin; do you know how
many hours of surgery it took to get those pinballs out of my
nostrils? Do you have any idea as to how disfiguring the scars
can be from a Sega Rally machine smashed through a jaw?
I
take you back to that fateful day in the summer of '94. It was a
time of hopes, it was a time of dreams. Everyone was dancing
around naked and rolling in grass. Man, woman and gherkin were
living peacefully hand in hand. Fingers smelled like they ought
to smell, and earlobes were just a figment of children's
imaginations. The human race had yet to experience pain,
suffering and death. Unbeknown to the hurdled masses, there was
an uglier side that was beginning to rear its pretty little head.
Racial tensions were running high in the run-down urban areas of
Minnesota. The tiniest spark would light the tinderbox and the
world would erupt into revolution. Death was lurking around the
corner for all sorts of cancer patients. Every twelve hours or
so, people's lives would be plunged into darkness. Out would come
the wolves, in places where wolves were indigenous. And I called
a bunch of deaf, dumb and blind kids retarded cripples after they
beat my high score on Addams Family pinball.
Oh yes, I know now.
But then, how was I to know that they'd whup my ass like
my one-legged wife, Eileen, in an ass-whuppin contest? I thought
I could say anything to them and they wouldn't know, unless
someone spelled it out on their hands for them. How was I to know
that they were the embodiment of the hear no evil, speak no evil,
see no evil monkeys? (And while I'm at it, I would call brutally
beating up someone who mocks the disabled evil, wouldn't you?)
They were much bigger than me; I wouldn't have called them a
bunch of retarded cripples if I'd known some of them could hear
me. I wouldn't have tried hiding behind the change machine if I
knew some of them could see me and make me swallow nearly £8
worth of 10ps. Now don't get me wrong, some of my best friends
are disabled, it's just all the other disabled people that I
hate.