Any time there’s censorship - and that’s all this Politically Correct environment that has developed is - it makes it hard on those with a dark sense of humor. Instead of being able to share the cruelty and horribleness of the world with other like-minded idiots, we’re forced to keep a stiff upper lip while all around us the wheels come off.
I hesitate to even relate this 100% true story but the truth is, if I don’t, nobody will. Only someone with nothing to lose can afford to be honest in this country anymore.
I was attending a high school football game Friday night and one of the cheerleaders was profoundly mentally handicapped.
So, right there, you think I’m a jerk for pointing that out.
I’m not. It’s a fact. One of the cheerleaders was “challenged.” If you think I’m against her participating as a cheerleader, you’re wrong and fuck you for jumping to conclusions.
Ok. Sorry for saying fuck you. Emotions are running pretty high.
I’m all for any girl who wants to cheer getting up there and cheering and trying to form pyramids and such. Of course, the downside is sitting there stone-faced as nine other girls perform a cheer, their arms and legs synchronized perfectly, while the handicapped girl hurls her arms in every direction with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Twenty years ago, this would have been the funny part of a movie and everyone would be howling with laughter, but these days, everyone has to keep terrible things they think to themselves. Smiles fixed on glazed-over faces. The parents of the other cheerleaders forced to mutter bitter comments under their breath as routine after routine crashes and burns under the weight of the one girl.
All of us waiting for the inevitable news that a mentally-handicapped girl will be joining the Rockettes and going forward, every Xmas will be fucked up for everyone and nobody will be able to say a word. There will soon be a “courageous” victim of multiple sclerosis crashing down the runway at the Miss America Pageant, the rattling of her leg braces drowning out the theme music, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
But don’t get me wrong; that’s not what this story is about.
It’s about something that happened and yes, it involves the mentally handicapped cheerleader. It’s innocuous and in a normal, sane world, it would be a quick story that everyone shared and thought was mildly amusing. But not these dark, PC days.
Today, just sharing it makes you a monster.
But share it I will.
We need monsters.
So here it is… at one point in the game, the mentally handicapped girl was trying to say something to another cheerleader and that cheerleader didn’t understand what she was saying so the mentally handicapped cheerleader put her hands on her hips, looked at her mother, rolled her tiny eyes and gave her mother the mother of all “that girl is retarded” looks.
It was so wonderfully human, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so I did what I always do in those situations. I laughed. And made a mental note to share it with everyone I know despite how uncomfortable the subject matter is. Not to share it would be the real bias.
If I could have taken a picture of the girl’s look, I would blow it up and have it as a poster over my desk.
What’s that?
You want another funny story about that cheerleader? You think that if I keep them to myself I’m being hypocritical?
Well, ok. You asked for it.
The coach of the other team kept complaining to the refs about calls. After he’d done this an annoying number of times, someone on our side of the stands let out an impossibly loud “Waaaah!” (Imitating the sound a baby would make if that baby was three stories tall). Our side of the field erupted in laughter.
This was not lost on the mentally handicapped cheerleader. Seeing the response, he received from the fans, she proceeded to let out a terrifying “Waaaah!” every three or four minutes for the balance of the game, usually when the other girls were in the middle of a routine. As someone who revels in awkwardness, I was in heaven.
Ok. I think I should have stopped with the first story.
Monsters are real. They live inside us, and sometimes they win.
-Stephen King