A WheelchairJunkie.com Production

By Mark E. Smith

Don’t you hate it when people talk behind your back about your disability – especially when they’re completely honest and sincere, and only tell the truth?

I mean, I really don’t mind when my friends, family, and colleagues talk about my disability behind my back with others – but, I just don’t want them doing it with honesty and sincerity. After all, as I tell them, if you’re going to answer others’ questions about my disability, at least have the decency to treat the conversation with the tact that I would: Lie to my every advantage.

My sister frustrates me till no end by telling her friends the truth about my disability. She’s 13 years younger than me, meaning that, mathematically, while I’m in my late 30s, her hot friends are in their mid 20s – and, trust me, that’s a great thing. It’s also the perfect opportunity for her to lie in my favor, making a great thing even better.

With my sister and I having a close relationship, we often run into her friends when we’re out together at dinner or at social events, and my disability sometimes comes up in her conversations after the fact, as with her friends casually noting, “I didn’t know that your brother uses a wheelchair?”

Now, these conversations are the perfect chance for my dear sister to score points for me, to respect my wishes and honor my spirit. She has the ideal opportunity to flat-out lie to her hot friends, manipulating them beyond any truths about me – middle-aged, married, big ears, dorky – and tell a tale worthy of tears, where they’ll long to reach out to me with their soft, silicone-enhanced touches:

We really don’t like to talk about my brother, Mark’s, disability because it’s so tragic…. He was a renowned dolphin trainer in Orlando during the 1980s and ’90s, who could actually communicate with the dolphins. In fact, he was known as the “Dolphin Whisperer.” One day, he slipped along side the tank while rushing to the aid of a baby dolphin in distress, falling, hitting his head on the concrete. He was in a coma for 6 months. Then, in a last-ditch effort, we rolled him in his hospital bed to the dolphin tank that was always so close to his heart. Remarkably, a dolphin came out of the water, and gently laid its head on Mark’s chest, refusing to leave. Miraculously, that day, Mark awoke from his coma. He’s had cerebral palsy ever since….

See, that’s a great story, one that works on two very powerful levels – not only do hot chicks love dolphins, but they also love dolphin trainers. Truly, everyone wins from such a touching story – especially me.

But, can you believe that my sister is so heartless that she forgoes such powerful prose about me, opting for the truth? I mean, come on, everyone knows that the fundamental principal to Disabled Dude 101, is that when a hot chick inquires about your disability, the truth is not to be told under any circumstance – a bold-faced lie is a necessity.

Sure, my sister naively explains that not only is it morally wrong to tell such lies, but that she also couldn’t keep a straight face when recounting such an absurd story about my disability. “Duh,” I tell her. “That’s why I took acting classes. If you wish to lie like a pro about this whole disability thing, you need professional training. It ain’t easy pulling tears from jaded, hot chicks in bustling bars – it takes years of practice and a lot of talent.”

As for my wife, she’s understandably offended by my self-serving compulsion to want others to tell tall tales about the origin of my disability. But, of course, she knows the honest to goodness truth from my confiding in her when we first met: I really received my disability while saving a school bus full of helpless children.

By Mark E. Smith 

Here’s a riddle: What’s the difference between you and me when our wheelchairs breakdown?

The answer is, when your wheelchair breaks down, it’s obviously a very serious issue. However, when my wheelchair breaks down, it’s a Stephen King movie in the making.

Now, I know that some assume that my own wheelchair never has issues. After all, I’m the WheelchairJunkie, himself, and my company makes my own wheelchair – not only am I supposed to have top-of-the-line equipment, but I’m also supposed to know exactly how to use and maintain my wheelchair at the level of a mobility professional. However, there’s one problem with that thought – my wheelchair doesn’t have a clue who I am!

Truly, if my wheelchair could talk, it would say, “Dude, all I know is that you’re a guy with cerebral palsy relying on me 18 hours per day, and when I’m ready to take a break, I don’t care who you are or what you’re doing – it’s lights out for me, brother!”

And, so my wheelchair does periodically have issues, just like I’m sure that Bill Gates finds himself pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE to unfreeze his darn computer. Machines are machines and, unfortunately, they don’t care who we are. Of course, hopefully Bill Gates and I learn from any issues, and use the experience to help our engineering teams make better products, but we’re real people, using our own products, and surely issues occur from time to time.

Despite my machine – or powerchair, as it is – having little reverence for a mobility man of my seated stature, it at least had a keen sense of where to stop in this situation: On the sidewalk the other morning, about two blocks from my house, on my way to work, in relatively good winter weather – there are certainly worse places to breakdown.

Now, probably a lot like your instinct if your chair has ever stopped in its tracks, I immediately tried to turn it back on, hoping that maybe I just accidentally hit the power button. But, of course, life is never, ever so kind.

Nope! Sure, my chair came back on – flashing error codes, that is. I know that I sound like a rolling encyclopedia when I answer your questions and quickly note what error codes point to what condition. However, that’s when I’m calm and cool in my office – not stranded on a sidewalk, wondering how to get myself out of such a predicament? Therefore, not only didn’t I have a clue as to what the error codes on my joystick conveyed, but even if I did, I couldn’t do anything about it myself, unable to reach beyond my seat. Of course, I caught myself glancing back toward my house like a sailor adrift at sea, wondering if he can swim back to shore, to which the voice in my head reminded me, “Give it up, buddy, you’re stuck!” I hate my inner voice, namely because he’s always right.

I pulled out my cell phone, and called one of my co-workers for help – a true luxury that, unfortunately, most wheelchair users don’t have. However, while I waited for him to arrive, a woman came out of her house, noting that I was obviously stuck, smiling and glad to see me. She mentioned that she knew who I was, acknowledging that she knew where I worked, and called me by name; but, I had no clue who she was, other than a woman seemingly delighted to see me stuck in front of her house at 7:30 in the morning.

“Do you think that you can fix it?” she asked, smiling.

“No, I have someone on the way,” I said.

“Well, if you can’t fix it, I guess everyone’s in trouble then,” she replied, laughing. “It looks like Mr. Wheelchair is stuck.”

“Oh, I can fix it, just not here,” I said, clarifying the situation.

“Do you know what’s wrong with it?” she asked, looking at one side of my chair, then the other, as if she might see something wrong.

“No,” I simply said, looking up the street, hoping I’d see my co-worker coming my way.

“If you don’t know what’s wrong with it, how are you going to fix it?” she asked, still smiling, clearly enjoying this Q-and-A of the WheelchairJunkie stuck on the sidewalk.

So, it’s just my luck that I not only had my powerchair stop dead on my way to work, but in front of Annie Wilkes’ house, the Kathy Bates character from the movie, Misery, who holds her favorite writer hostage out of obsessive adoration.

Then, I swear, the woman popped the exact question reminiscent of Misery that I didn’t want to hear, “Why don’t you come inside the house and get warm.”

Firstly, again, I’ve seen the movie, and I wasn’t about to fall for that trick! Secondly, I was strapped into a 300 lb. powerchair that was dead in its tracks, and there were four steps into her house – she couldn’t get me in her house if she wanted to. Lucky for me.

“My co-worker will be here any moment,” I said, hoping I was right.

“Well, I just think this whole situation is hysterical!” she said, raising her voice like she’d won something.

Fortunately, my co-worker showed up with my accessible van that he’d picked up from my house, whisking me off to work and repair.

It turned out that earlier that morning, while I waited with my daughter at the school bus stop, my daughter was horsing around, and caught a cable on the back of my powerchair, sending my powerchair into an error code, which promptly went away. At the time, I reckoned that she’d simply jostled a connection; however, as I later learned, she’d pulled the cable to a point where the connector barely had contact, and it waited patiently to lose entire contact two blocks later, leaving me stranded. As I’ve explained to my daughter, accidents happen and once we found the issue at my office, a new cable allowed me to quickly get rolling again.

All of this reminds me of two important lessons: Firstly, my powerchair and daughter are just as quick to wreak havoc on my mobility as the next guy’s, as they don’t give a hoot who I am. And, secondly, from now on, I should avoid the sidewalk in front of that lady’s house – I may not get away from her next time!

By Mark E. Smith 

“Special-Needs Dog Finds Happy Home with Special-Needs Family” – that could be the sappy, sentimental headline to this story. Or, maybe not. 

Indeed, we’ve been raising a new addition in our family, 16-week-old Lola, a French Bulldog that we’ve had since she was 8-weeks old. We’ve been huge English Bulldog fans since getting our archetype of a Bully, Rosie, several years ago, as it’s tough not to love such original characters – licking, lumbering, drooling souls, who just want to hang out with you. So, with Rosie trained and settling in to adulthood – basically sleeping, with intermittent excitement over my coming home from work or dropped food from the table – we thought it was time to get her a playmate, or lounge mate, as the case may be.

However, rather than get another English Bulldog, my wife and I thought that we’d take inspiration from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, seeking to create a kaleidoscope of ethnicities among our Bullies, opting for a French Bulldog. By breed, English Bulldogs are extremely lovable and loyal, but admittedly lazy. In comparison, French Bulldogs are just as lovable and loyal, but more active and comical, with ridiculous Mighty Mouse ears that standup.

After quite a search, we found Lola, who’s everything a French Bulldog should be: Lovable, loyal, and comical as heck, complete with ridiculous Mighty Mouse ears. What’s more, Lola is snow white, with a black ring around her left eye, looking every bit the part of a petite, French version of Petey from the Little Rascals. Oh, and did I mention that Lola is completely deaf?

Lola has congenital deafness that’s genetically linked to her pigmentation – white dogs of her breed are prone to deafness. However, what’s especially interesting to me is that Lola has no clue that she’s deaf.

Now, you’re likely saying, “Mark, she’s a freakin’ dog – of course she doesn’t know that she’s deaf!”

Fair enough, but she’s 100% adept, where deafness doesn’t seem to have any impact on her. In fact, she comes running when we set her bowl down even when she’s not looking – I suppose feeling the floor vibration. The only notable difference between Lola and a dog with hearing is that she doesn’t react to startle noises. A banging hammer next door or a compacting garbage truck gets most dogs riled up. But, not Lola – she remains completely calm, oblivious to such noises, happily playing, sleeping, and hanging out. Surely, in the wild, hearing is a vital sense, a protection mechanism; however, in a suburban home, where she lives a lush life, Lola doesn’t seem the least bit at any disadvantage over other dogs, acting and responding typically, right down to potty training and learning the type of gesture commands that are used for obedience with many dogs.

Of course, the big Bully, Rosie, is oblivious to Lola’s deafness, too – though, sometimes looking puzzled as to why the pup doesn’t awake when she barks at her, wanting to play? Nevertheless, Rosie has caught on to getting Lola’s attention with another sense: A whack with a paw!

Certainly, some people have general hang-ups toward disability, including when it comes to dogs, as I’ve learned. Both English and French Bulldogs of registered blood lines are very expensive, and hard to come by. But, whenever a pup has a disability, as with Lola’s deafness, price and demand drop. Due to her deafness, Lola was about one-third the price of her siblings, and some of our friends even questioned why one would pay for – or want - a deaf dog?

I’ve observed that people’s reactions to dogs with disabilities says a lot about how we view disability in our culture as a whole. The fact is, if I didn’t tell someone that Lola was deaf upon meeting her, one wouldn’t know – Lola’s just an adorable, loving, smart, attentive pup of pedigree. Yet, the minute that we, as humans, label her as disabled, her literal value becomes less. The dog’s own adeptness at living without hearing is proof to me that disability is more abstract and subjective as a label than many of us realize. While disability is very clear-cut in some cases, as with my cerebral palsy, it’s more a projected label on others who are far less physically impacted, and it’s startling to realize how quick we are as a society to devalue even a pet strictly based on the label of disabled.

I absolutely agree that I have a disability, that I’m disabled by virtually any definition, and I have no concern with anyone labeling me as such. But, I can’t say the same about my silly little dog, Lola, whose adeptness and complete unawareness of our labeling her as somehow less capable truly transcends what we call disability. And, there’s tremendous inspiration to watching her live so unabashedly as her entire self – a dog being a dog, hearing or not – unconcerned and unaffected by the social baggage that we humans label as disabled.

In actuality, then, I have to change the headline to a more realistic, less projected tag: “Dog Finds Home with Family.” Sure, there’s no sap in that headline, but at least it’s accurate.

I’m not superstitious – except when it comes to the number 3 and wheelchairs. 

Black cats can cross my path all day; I’ll roll underneath ladders without a care; and, my muscle spasms have caused me to break countless mirrors in my life. And, none of it worries me a bit.

But, if I encounter two users with wheelchair issues, I have to close my eyes, and count backward to negative 100. Why, you ask?  Because if I don’t break the curse, another user will experience a wheelchair issue.  After all, I don’t want anyone to have any wheelchair issue, ever, let alone three people.

But, it’s a proven fact that users have wheelchair issues in groups of 3. You’ve heard of people dying in groups of 3, well wheelchairs break in groups of 3, too. I don’t know why wheelchairs have issues in groups of 3, but they do. If someone in Tampa has a battery issue, and someone in Toledo has a seating issue, within ten minutes, I’ll receive an email from someone in Tempe with a funding issue. It’s always 3. Is it completely bizarre? Sure. Does it consistently occur? Absolutely. Read the WheelchairJunkie.com Message Board, you’ll see.

Of course, I’ve tried to figure out the cause of the Mystery Pattern of 3, looking for a scientific explanation – is it based on weather, or the seasons when people are outside more, or during months when more new wheelchairs are sold than others?  Maybe even the lunar phases somehow affect wheelchairs?  But, alas, I haven’t found an answer – at least, not based in science.

What I have concluded is that it’s a conspiracy.  No, I don’t normally believe in conspiracies – but, this one is just that, a conspiracy. After watching Oliver Stone’s JFK, and reading countless books on Area 54, I’ve determined that it’s probably not that wheelchairs break in threes, but that there’s a secret network where users make plans – even scheduling dates – sending me their issues in groups of threes, trying to freak me out (no, I’m not paranoid, either – except, of course, when it comes to people who are out to get me). 

I mean, how else do you explain the fact that Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa, and Amelia Earhart all contacted me the other night about their wheelchairs needing repair?

The saying that everything old becomes new again has never been truer than when it comes to today’s ultralight manual wheelchair market, where Rainer Kuschall’s decades-old monotube design is all the rage, with virtually all manual wheelchair manufacturers now offering monotube models. To use another cliché, one might say that the bandwagon is better late then never.

Nevertheless, even though it took 22 years for the monotube to catch on in the U.S., it’s done so for good reason: A monotube makes for a responsive but forgiving ride, in a lightweight, compact package, with a sleek, minimalistic aesthetic.

I’ve used a rigid frame style manual chair for the past two decades, with my most recent built 7 years ago. I’m no jock or super-para by any stretch. In fact, I’m a complete spazzo on wheels – which is all the more reason for me to use a rigid frame, as in for utmost durability and propulsion efficiencies, compensating for my spastic, tone-driven push strokes. So, with my company increasing its presence in the manual chair market, and my needing a new rigid, I was fortunate to be able to put together a frame set of my own this year – a monotube, no less – in time for flying to MedTrade and other upcoming travel.

My frame set aside, the choices that I made toward components – such as rear wheels and casters – are the most applicable topics of discussion, using aftermarket components that are widely available, ones that you might use on your own chair.

Weight is critical toward wheelchair propulsion, especially at the rear wheels. A heavier wheel simply requires more energy to accelerate and propel than a lighter wheel, so the lighter the rear wheels, the easier a manual wheelchair is to push. With this principal, I began with a Spinergy Spox LX rim, which is among the lightest rims available.

If I wished the absolute most efficient, lightest wheel configuration, I would have finished the Spinergy LX rim with an aluminum handrim and a 100psi clincher tire. However, being that I’m using the chair for travel in everyday enviroments, I chose to run a slightly heavier but more practical set-up.

For tires, I went with a 65 psi, 1-3/8” everyday tire. Everyday tires offer better terrain handling, hold optimally with brakes, offer increased puncture resistance, and better maintain air pressure than 100 psi clinchers. Unquestionably, 100 psi clincher tires are far more efficient on ideal, hard surfaces than 1-3/8” everyday tires; but for everyday use on unpredictable terrain, 1-3/8” everyday tires are a sound choice.

The handrims were another choice made out of practicality. I went with ergonomic handrims for better grip over standard tubular handrims. And, indeed, the ergonomic handrims allow a notably comfortable, efficient grip – even on my one hand that doesn’t have a much coordination – and they are tremendously more effective toward uphill pushing and downhill braking. As such, from an ergonomic viewpoint, they are fantastic. However, ergonomic handrims are much heavier than a standard aluminum handrim – about 1 lb. Per side – to the point where the wheel feels heavier. What’s more, because the weight of a handrim is spinning at the outermost portion of the wheel – the most consequential place to add weight to a manual wheelchair – the heavier rotational weight of the handrim surely detracts from performance. However, the question becomes, do the benefits of ergonomic handrims outweigh the drawbacks of extra weight?

In my use, absolutely – the increased propulsion efficiencies that I get from using ergonomic handrims is well worth the trade-off in weight. The ergonomic handrims simply allow me to propel the chair dramatically better (or, at least keep the darn thing rolling in a straight line, which is the best that I can hope for!).

On the front casters, I went big for a monotube with an 80-degree front frame bend, squeezing in 6”, soft-roll front casters. Again, on ideal, flat, hard, smooth surfaces, an 80mm or 4” caster would prove most responsive. However, in everyday use, on unpredictable surfaces, a big, 6” soft-roll makes for an easier, safer ride. And, they are totally smooth, void of chatter on rough surfaces, which is a nice difference from small, hard casters – the chair all but glides. Plus, the aluminum rims are always a classic cool look.

Another practical touch are my quick-release stroller handles, set behind the backrest. On the one hand, I need a low back height for self-propulsion, but then the push handles are too low for others to push me when needed. To address this, I added height-adjustable, quick-release stroller handles that are placed at the right location for a companion, without interferring with my my positioning.

Of course, even though we built my own chair, I wasn’t without fitting issues like many users, where my posture doesn’t like to conform to typical seating and angles – I’m not a sit-and-go kind of fit. As has always been the case, I build my seating as close to my needs as possible, then a lot of tweaking still has to occur with adjustments to angles, cushions, and straps. While I understand this involved process, my ever-teasing daughter viewed it a tad mored bluntly. While fitting myself at home in my new chair one evening, I explained to her that we had to take the chair back to my office for some changes to the backrest, as it wasn’t fitting my angles and posture quite right.

“So, the back is wrong?” she asked

“Yep – I need to make it fit my crazy posture better,” I said, transferring onto the couch, my daughter holding the chair.

“But, you’re the one who made it, right?” she asked.

“Yep,” I replied.

“If you made the back, and it’s wrong…” she said with a smile, “…then that means that you made you’re own chair wrong.”

“Exactly,” my wife chimed in from the kitchen, making my daughter laugh.

“Come here, shorty – let’s see how well you fit!” I said, grabbing my daughter, pulling her onto the couch, tickling her.

“I take it back, I tack it back! You are the WheelchairJunkie!” she exclaimed, laughing hysterically.

Indeed, monotube wheelchairs and kids are fun – and even more fun together.

We know that kids are classic when it to asking questions about disability. Yet, when it comes to wheelchair use, I’ve observed that children are less inquisitive and less concerned these days toward those who use wheelchairs than they used to be – namely, I suppose, because if you watch the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, or Sesame Street, or read grade-school text books, children with disabilities are prevalent as a trend toward overall diversity representation.

Nevertheless, the other evening, I came across one of the few kids in America who’s apparently never seen a wheelchair – ironically, just a few blocks from the company that I work for manufacturing wheelchairs, a fixture in our town.

“What’s that?” the chubby 10-year-old, or so, boy with round, wire-rim glasses asked, pointing at my wheelchair as we both waited at the corner to cross the street.

“A wheelchair,” I said, looking at the red lit don’t-cross sign.

“What’s it for?” he asked.

“I can’t walk, so I use this,” I said, looking him in the eyes, smiling.

“Why can’t you walk?” he asked, motionless, simply staring back at me in the eyes.

“My legs don’t work right,” I said, giving a simple, quick answer, waiting for the light to change, knowing not to get into a complex discussion with the Twenty-Question Kid about cerebral palsy.

“Are they made out of rubber?” he asked, arms at his side, his eyes still locked on mine.

“What?” I asked, unsure if I had heard him correctly, unsure we were still on the same subject.

“Your legs,” he said, “are they made out of rubber?”

I’ve heard a lot of crazy sentiments come out of the mouths of children, but none have ever asked if my legs are made from rubber. I’m a fairly quick wit, but his question was so unexpected and imaginative, I was speechless, impressed by his originality. This crazy kid was raising the bar on our street-corner conversation, to where he had me stumped. I smirked, looked at the light to see if it was still red, then I composed myself, forming my comeback.

“Not rubber,” I said. “They’re made out of polyvinyl chloride.”

“Oh,” he said, still staring me in the eyes. “What’s that?”

“PVC plumbing pipe,” I replied.

“Oh,” he said.

I looked at the light, noting it was now green.

“Time to cross,” I said, rolling into the crosswalk, looking over my shoulder, seeing him just standing there on the corner, motionless, watching me leave.

If anyone would end up having a profound conversation about disability in a strip club, it would be me.

This all started with a conspiracy the other day. See, if my friends and I told our wives that we were having a guys’ night out at the strip club, it would never fly – we’d be lectured, then resigned to staying home to watch the Lifetime network with our wives. However, if we said that we were invited to a “bachelor party,” we were free to go – after all, who wants to be known as the only wife out of the bunch who wouldn’t let her husband go to the bachelor party?

And, our pact to blatantly lie to our wives worked perfectly.

So, there we were at the strip club, and it was everything you could imagine – gold poles, multicolored lights, drifting smoke, and 4-inch heals everywhere. And, as is the case at strip clubs, there was a steady stream of women offering lap dances to us, at least one every two minutes, trying to drain our dollars in real time.

“Dude, check that out,” my buddy said, pointing to an extremely tall, slender, brunette woman in a skin-tight, silver-sequined halter top and matching hot paints.

I watched her for a moment, two tables or so from us in the foggy, seemingly dizzying club. She had a card in her hand that she showed the customer at the table, then tucked the card in her top, picked up a pen and pad off the table, and wrote on it, showing it to the gentleman. I looked to her lips to see what she was saying, but she wasn’t saying a word, just pointing at the note pad, as if wanting the guy to read it.

“She’s a deaf-mute,” my buddy said, looking at me, then back to her.

I watched her gesturing to the guy with her pad again, having written down something else she wanted him to read. “I think you’re right,” I replied.

“That’s weird,” my buddy said.

“This whole scene is weird,” I said. “A deaf-mute stripper isn’t any weirder than a stripper, in general.”

My buddy looked at me, raising an eyebrow.

“Really, if you think about it, there’s equality to it,” I added. “Why shouldn’t a deaf-mute woman strip?”

“I don’t know?” he replied. “It’s just weird.”

“Look at it this way, she’s putting herself out there with a disability well beyond what most would do,” I said. “I know it sounds crazy, but there’s some courage in that. Hustling guys for lap dances takes some gumption, so imagine doing it when you’re deaf and can’t speak.”

“Then, think what she could do if she put that fortitude toward other things in life,” he said.

“But, that goes for every dancer in here,” I said. “That’s where there’s equality in a warped kind of way – there’s no reason why one with a disability shouldn’t pursue any path, functional or dysfunctional.”

“So, is stripping going to be your new career path?” my buddy asked, smiling, picking up his beer.

“My wife begs me to put my pants back on, let alone a club full of strange men paying me to take them off,” I said, reaching in my pocket for more money for the next lap dance. “When you’re smokin’ hot like her with a disability, you make money. When you’re a weathered yahoo like me with a disability, you lose money.”

“That’s how strip clubs work,” my buddy replied, slapping me on the back. “And, aren’t they great!”

Consumer survey companies hate me – they just don’t know it.

I just received another consumer survey to fill out. I receive quite a few these days, having bought a new van within the last year, which immediately put me on ten different automobile surveys, with a computer purchase, catalog ordering, and a subscription to Consumer Reports all adding another dozen surveys to my mailbox.

But, as a guy with a disability, I know that I completely skew the ultimate accuracy of their target marketing toward me, where my on-paper demographic doesn’t account for my true wants and needs. To the survey data collectors, I’m a 36-year-old married home owner, with one child, white-collar income, with interests in “outdoor recreation” and “family activities” – characteristics that, based on the junk mail I receive, paint me as the type of guy captivated by SUVs, lawn tractors, and treadmills. I even receive a bi-weekly flier from the high-end outdoor retailer, REI, listing specials on bicycles and kayaks.

The fact is, as a result of my having cerebral palsy and using a wheelchair, the consumer survey demographic generated about me goes out the window, where unless they show me a powerchair on a lawn tractor or tread mill, they’re wasting their advertising dollars.

Nevertheless, I confess that when filling out the surveys, I purposely check the box that states that I have an interest in “fitness,” which explains the REI bicycle and kayak fliers – and, more importantly, the Victoria’s Secret bikini catalogs that I happily receive in the mail, too.

When it gets to be after midnight like tonight, and my wife complains that I’m working too late again, I tell her, “Baby, I was born into this – you signed on for the ride, knowing what you were getting yourself into. If my habits haven’t changed over the last fifteen years, they’re not going to now.”

Technically, I am busier than ever these days – admittedly working later every night of the week – but it doesn’t seem any different to me, where I’ve always worked on something late into the night, starting in college, then keeping it going with writing over the years. I guess I forever see myself as the kid in the mail room, who reckons that working harder and later inevitably pays off.

And, it has. Presently, my career has three aspects – my role in the corporate world as a wheelchair product manager; my role in customer service via my consumer-based web site, WheelchairJunkie.com; and, my role as a writer. The fortunate aspect is that all three roles overlap, with all aspects inspiring each other, a balance of sorts that keeps everything fresh and energized. But, the downside is time, where at least a 9-hour day in my literal office is a given, followed by hours at home addressing customer service that never ends, with emails and message board posts that truly never stop, all needing infinite time. Then, there’s the writing, which is creatively easy to come by, but takes time – several hours per night to do it right.

So, with so much going on – not to mention, my daughter, house, and all of the duties that go with everyday living – it’s tough to pack it all into an 18-hour day. But, I do – that is, with an extremely regimented schedule.

Between 7:00am and 10:00pm, it’s go, go, go – as non-stop as possible, a whirlwind of wheelchairs, emails, phone calls, meetings, and more emails, with dinner and family time tucked in during the evening. But, once it hits around 10:00pm, rather than winding down, I’m usually winding up – it’s time to start writing.

By 11:00pm, I’m in my groove, the midst of my “writer’s grift,” as I call it. By midnight, I’m all wound up, on a writer’s roll, with music blaring, words like these flowing onto the page with relative ease. And, this is when my wife shows up on queue. “I don’t have a problem with you staying up so late writing,” my wife says, wearing a Victoria’s Secret nightgown, hair in her face from just getting up from bed. “But, do you have to blare bad music?”

“That’s not bad music – that’s Black Flag,” I say, turning up the volume, banging my head in the air with the 80s’ punk rock version of “Louie Louie.”

She leans down, pulls a plug out of the wall, silencing the music in an instant. “Take up something quiet to do while you’re writing late at night – like chain smoking,” she says, walking back to bed.

“But, it’s ‘Louie Louie’…,” I say, struggling to pick up the plug off of the floor, eager to get back on my writer’s grift.

I must have said it five times throughout the day at work today: “Just sign and date my name on it, please.” The other five times – meeting attendance sheets, management sign-offs, an expense report – needed no instruction, as those around me know not to be shy about using their steady hands to sign for my not-so-steady hand.

My disagreement with my own John Hancock goes way back. As a preschooler with cerebral palsy, it was evident that penmanship wasn’t going to be my best subject as I went through school. Heck, at the age of five, I couldn’t stay within the lines of a coloring book, let alone write “Mark” on those brown, lined sheets of dusty-smelling paper that students have used for over a century to practice writing their name over and over again – one life-size name per page was the closest I came.

But, as I grew up, I kept at it, and somewhere around the age of twenty, I had at least enough coordination to sign a check or a greeting card – though never both on the same day, as neither my body nor I had such patience, nor did I wish to include checks with greeting cards.

Before buying my first car and house, I bought an inked stamp of my signature. Actually, it wasn’t even my signature, but it did stamp, “Mark E. Smith.” I reckoned that if a stamp was entirely consistent in stamping whatever was printed on it, then I might as well put the best darn penmanship I could find on it – which was my mom’s.

As it turned out, if a pen required more dexterity than I had, so did that darn ink stamp. My trying to stamp it on the right line of a check or document was like playing pin the tale on the donkey – I had khaki pants for years with my name stamped on the knee from the signing of buying my first house.

Once I became an author, people wished signed books – and I did well with that. Books have a large, blank page in the front, void of structured lines, proving an ideal target for me to hit with a Sharpie. Of course, there was always that one woman in line at book signings, asking for an inscription to “Alexandria Protrocktov,” to which I’d explain that I wasn’t skilled with my “A”s or “O”s, or any other letter, really.

Nowadays, while I have to sign more items than ever, I almost never do. Sure, my signature appears on dozens of documents each week with my approval, but you’d be hard pressed to find my actual signature. My wife signs my name on most of our personal documents; whomever I’m with – family, friends, my English Bulldog – signs for Visa check card purchases; and, at work my employees and coworkers sign my name followed by their initials all day long.

The fact is, I can’t physically write, for all intents and purposes, but everyone else can – and how convenient that is for me.

Of course, some day I’ll find myself in court, starring at Exhibit A, with the plaintiff’s attorney asking, “Mr. Smith, is this your signature?”

And, I’ll be able to look him in the eyes, with sincerity, and reply, “Can you please clarify what you mean by my signature.”