Seeing the Light

By Sharon Wachsler

All too often, jokes about people with disabilities are made at our expense. This column is about jokes made by people with disabilities, in celebration of our creativity, resilience and unique perspective. In effect, we are building disability culture. The first time I realized that people with disabilities, as a group, could make our own “in jokes” was when I heard John Hockenberry’s call-in show about disability culture on National Public Radio. He asked which people with disabilities make the best lovers. One man called in and said, “It’s us people with cerebral palsy. It’s all about that jerking motion.”

I thought this was hilarious – and intriguing. I enjoy swapping humorous anecdotes with my other friends with CFIDS (chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome), and the caller’s joke made me realize others must do the same thing. I have since discovered that each subgroup of people with disabilities has a unique, funny perspective.

Indeed, one of my most popular CFIDS tragicomedies is the time I decided to change the light bulb in the fixture on my kitchen ceiling. Whenever I recount this tale to friends with CFIDS, as soon as they hear, “So, although I was feeling really sick and exhausted, I decided to change my own light bulb, rather than waiting for my personal attendant. . .” they groan with anticipatory knowledge of what’s coming.

One of the hallmarks of CFIDS is cognitive dysfunction — trouble with memory, concentration, problem-solving, judgment and related issues. I often attempt to “overcome” this by focusing really, really hard. Needless to say, when your judgment is already off-kilter, the decision to do something ill-advised probably won’t be thought out well. When you combine fuzzy thinking with dizziness, exhaustion, light sensitivity and balance problems, it’s unlikely that there will be light bulbs going up over your head, real or metaphorical.

Nevertheless, sometimes I’m determined to be independent and dismiss my limitations. That’s what happened with the kitchen lamp. I flicked on the light switch so that I could see which of the three bulbs needed to be replaced. I memorized its location before turning off the switch so that I would not burn or electrocute myself. See how I was cleverly thinking ahead? Cognitive impairment be damned!

Huffing and puffing, I dragged a chair to the spot under the lamp. Standing on the chair, dizzy and nauseated, I unscrewed the shade and reached up to remove the dead bulb. . .Now, which one was it? Looking up at the fixture at close range, I had no idea which bulb I had just identified. I carefully got down off the chair, stumbled over to the switch, turned on the light, and aha! There it was. No problem. I memorized where it was, turned off the light, staggered over to the chair, climbed on, fought down the nausea and waited for the dizziness to pass, then reached up. Only. . .I couldn’t figure out which bulb was the right one. They looked so different up close.

Sweating and shaking, I got off the chair, dragged myself to the switch, flicked on the light. . .

I repeated this process four times before I gave up, exhausted, leaving the chair in the middle of the floor and the shade on the table. When my personal attendant showed up a couple of days later, he replaced the bulb, put the shade back on, and moved the chair to where it belonged. The whole process took him, oh, about a minute. Meanwhile I was still in bed, trying to recover from not actually replacing the bulb.

That ordeal allowed my ideas of disability culture humour to take root and grow. I saw the irony of my story centring around changing a light bulb, one of the most popular joke genres, as in, “How many (insert person here) does it take to change a light bulb?” I decided that in the case of people like me, perhaps the answer would be, “One, but it might take several years,” or alternatively, “None — we just learn to live in the dark.”

Sharon Wachsler (www.sharonwachsler.com) is a writer, humourist, and dog and human trainer. This article first appeared at abilitymaine.org.

Share the lighter side of living with a disability! Send 700 words to: The Lighter Side, ABILITIES, 340 College St., Ste. 401, Toronto, ON, M5T 3A9; or e-mail: able@abilities.ca.