My Crippling Condition

My Crippling Condition

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Well, once again, the cruel hands of fate have set their sights upon the quality of life of your humble yet mildly chauvinistic and wistfully happy writer. They have attempted to wrench from me one of the few beloved pleasures that I have come to enjoy from the very stirrings of my youth – Movies. Yes, the great and wonderful silver screen captured me at the tender age of three months womb gestation, and has held me spellbound ever since.
And now, this condition, this curse, this insidious intrusion into the innocuous and innocent icon of imagery, this maniacal and maleficent monster of monumental mischief has yet again invaded my otherwise ebullient, contented, and joyous existence.
My DVD player quit.
You might ask, What has that to do with your "condition," as you may call it? Well, I can't watch my DVD's and all because of my handicap ... but not the handicap you think.
No, I didn't try to insert a disc into the player, and due to my arthritic and malformed fingers, inadvertently disturbed the delicate workings of the device. Nor did I accidentally drop the thing, or damage it in any way because my hands are no longer as deft and capable as they used to be. No, that's not the handicap of which I speak. The terrible and tragic disability that plagues me, hinders me, harangues me, harasses me, denies me access, and causes me to have to make concessions by – figuratively speaking – grasping the hand rail and struggling to pull my wheelchair up the mountainous steps of ocular survival, is one that I've had from my birth. And sadly, there is no Senator or Congressman, no acrostical organization in this, the greatest country in the world, America, to champion the injustice that is so callously flung upon ones with my "condition."
In order to live in a world that demands conformity to its numerous, even incalculable subtle and nuanced shades of tonal variation all across the vast pigmented spectrum, those of us afflicted with this particular disability must simply suffer in quiet and piteous solitude, having no government mandate, no stick figure silhouetted rendering at eye level stuck on a metal sign to aid us in the daily vicissitudes of life. We have no painted concrete square to assist us in our struggle for survival in an apparently apathetic and heartless society.
Yes, I am one of those forelorn, fringe-deligated, and forgotten. I am ... COLORBLIIND!
That was the problem with my DVD player. Color. They don't care about us, they don't concern themselves with those of us who can't match the blue cable to the blue input jack. Yeah, that's right, the damned thing is color coded. Everything is color coded, the whole @#%%! world is color coded! It's infuriating.
So I'm trying to hook up my DVD play that a very good friend of mine graciously gave to me, because the last one I had, which he also bought for me, went out. So he sent me the new one, and as I'm connecting it to my TV, I notice that the attachments have little color strips on them. And the input jacks have little rings of color on the inside of the chrome casings into which you're suppose to plug the cables. My friend, the one who sent me the player, tried to help me over the phone, but of course, he can't see the colors for me, so we did the best we could, and got it hooked up.
And then it went out. I thought maybe it had been damaged in the shipping, maybe sinsce it was used, it was on its last leg and just happen to go out shortly after I put it to use, who knows. In any event, it stopped working. So, I was all set to buy a new DVD player when another friend of mine happen to come over. I told him about my player going out and that I was going to have to buy a new one and he consoled me over my tragic loss.
"Hey, by the way," I said. "Just for the hell of it, check those cables on the DVD player and make sure I got the right ones matched to the right color."
So he did as I asked.
"Yep," he said. "They're good."
"Hey, while you're at it," I begged in dark sunglasses and holding out my tin cup, "check the ones going into the TV as well, would you?"
"Sure," he said kindly as I heard the sound of metal coinage clanging in the bottom of my cup. He stepped into the claustrophobic space behind the cabinet that I built to house my old but satisfactory television set, and proceeded to check my handiwork.
"Nope," I heard from behind the cabinet. "You got the red in the blue and the blue in the red."
"SON-OF-A @#%&!" I offered. "THEY SHOULD DIE! THE FILTHY NO GOOD %#&@!'s SHOULD DIE!" At this point, I felt a bit dissatisfied with the system that these electronic companies use. "Why the hell don't they put the damned names of the colors on the damned cables and input jacks?"
"Why should they?" responded my friend. "Most people aren't colorblind."
I gave him a deadpan stare for a moment, very graciously thanked him for his help, then kicked him square in the balls.
Just kidding.
So, once again, I have a DVD player and once again, life is back to normal. That is, until I run into another exciting adventure in the wonderful world of color coordination.
I guess in the larger cosmic scheme of things, when one looks at it from a galactic point of view, one is moved to just accept that we all have to learn to live with our problems here on this little mid-mediant-vaired to light-shade planet of ours.

Keck