Salon.com > Gary Presley

Pity the nutty professor

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 19:23:00 +0000

"Go back to your TV, you fucking loser!" the guy yelled. Then came a click and the distinctive buzz of a disconnected telephone.

And I did. Geez, I thought, I wonder if a weirdo can be psychic. My telephone friend had called Labor Day afternoon from three states away to share his thoughts about an opinion piece I'd written for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. My essay encouraged people to rethink their support of the techniques employed by Jerry Lewis during his annual Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, but Mr. Eloquent thought $50 million plus was worth more than respect for people with disabilities.

And that was the show I was watching when he called -- the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon 2002, the annual extravaganza we gimps like to call "the Pitython."

It was a first for me. I've never been able to stand more than a few minutes of Lewis and his MDA crew. The maudlin pleas for money, the pathetic references -- "My kids" -- give me the creeps. This was the 37th tear-jerking pitython, a record-breaking run for the nutty professor -- and that's in spite of the hard work of a good number of crip activists attempting to push the MDA away from the pity party program and toward a more enlightened attitude about people with disabilities.

Crippled logic

Tue, 04 Jun 2002 19:00:00 +0000

I had never spoken with anyone ready to eat a gun until the day I told a woman that the price of car insurance quadrupled after a drunken driving conviction.

I peddled insurance and I didn't much like my job. I was a cynic, trapped by lies, drenched in disrespect, and angry with myself for choosing an easy job that paid good money rather than seeking work that might challenge me.

I had even thought about riding a bullet out of this world, but it wasn't because of insurance. Insurance wasn't important enough.

It's easy to sell insurance because most people magnify their fears. But most people also hate the insurance industry because they believe no one should profit from trouble. I understood the hate and refused to let it touch me. I had convinced myself the service I sold was useful enough in the grand scheme of life.

Don't think the lies I'm talking about were my own. I never lied about insurance. I didn't care enough. The lies I hated came through the door and over the telephone and piled up on my desk. I believed nearly everyone would lie to get the best of an insurance company.

Lie to get a better rate: "No, I never drive that car to work. And my son doesn't live with me anymore."

Ants for breakfast

Thu, 07 Mar 2002 20:31:00 +0000

I ate ants for breakfast last week.

We rise before daybreak in our home, and my wife is off to work. We embrace, kiss and she drives away. The noise of the alarm, the chatter of doors and drawers give way to silence, to time to read, to think and to be alone in the predawn stillness. The world turns quiet, and I am free to start the day on my own terms.

I find a book and settle down to a simple breakfast of tea and dry cereal. I like best the neat little shredded wheat biscuits. I don't like milk, and so I dip handfuls from the box as I page my book.

Shredded wheat comes in a variety of forms. I prefer the plain, but last week I found only one box left in the cupboard, and that was a box of the type "with honey and almonds baked in." My wife has a sweet tooth.

That explains the ants, but it doesn't explain why I ate them.

Actually, it doesn't completely explain the ants. Spring and fall, our house suffers an invasion of sugar ants, tiny fellows perhaps an eighth of an inch long. My wife murmurs about the efficiency of pesticides. I refuse to listen. I'd rather put up with ants temporarily than spray chemicals indiscriminately.