Why Does Someone Like Me Write Humor?

Someone asked me why I write humor, or for that matter, how can I write humor? I know what they were really saying, “How and why can someone who has a spinal cord injury possibly find anything to laugh about, let alone share it with others.”

I was raised in a family that laughed a lot. We were taught that there was a funny side to just about anything, and it was a lot better to laugh than cry. Occasionally, my mother would think my brother, sister and I might be getting a little too far into the hilarity and she would say, “Be careful. Someone could end up crying.”

It was usually Dad.

I didn’t see anything funny about being disabled; certainly not for the first few years. It hit me right out of the blue. I guess I would be better off saying it enveloped me, and it seemed pretty blue. I was sitting in my wheelchair one day, either in a line-up at the bank or the grocery store, I don’t remember which, but that’s not important.

The idea to start writing humor was propelled in my direction. The unknown person in front of me gave me the idea. I remember thinking, someone should write about living life at fart height. (Think about it for a minute. You’ll get the picture.)

My wife had been encouraging me to write the kind of material I wanted to write, now that my career of writing what other people wanted me to write for them was behind me. Maybe I was the person to write about living at fart height.

In the ensuing eighteen years I have written nine books, hundreds of newspaper features, and magazine articles. My readers may ascertain that I am disabled from some of the things I have written, but I still haven’t written about living at fart height.

Until today.

I write about being a husband, father, dog owner and observer of life. All of those subjects have little or nothing to do with being disabled. Being disabled is just a small part of my life. For a lot of people it defines me, but I don’t define myself that way. Reader’s Digest said my specialty is making readers laugh at me, at themselves, and at life in general.

It’s that life in general where the humor is most easily found.

I’m not your everyday writer. A TV talk show host once said she never know what I might say next. (Truth be known, neither do I.) One look at my titles will tell you I am just a little bit different. It’s been that way from the very first book, Justice Is Blind – And Her Dog Just Peed In My Cornflakes.

My ninth book was just released last week. My Slice Of Life Is Full Of Gristle is my seventh collection of short humorous essays. My other two are novels, including the top selling Christmas humor book on Amazon Kindle leading up to Christmas 2011.

And someday I promise. I’ll write about living at fart height.

My books are available at

http://www.gordonkirkland.com/bookstore

Contact me through:

Website – http://www.gordonkirkland.com

Facebook -- https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gordon-Kirkland/56688189161

Twitter -- @kirklandatlarge

I’d love to hear from you.

You Stick This Plastic Tube, WHERE???

Over the last many years, I have had to learn to perform a somewhat disquieting procedure on myself. I am an incomplete paraplegic due to a spinal cord injury I sustained in an automobile accident. One of the effects of that injury is a reduced ability to fully empty my bladder, resulting in the need to self-catheterize.

When I was in the hospital after the accident, the nurse the sent to teach me how to use this medieval torture device on myself, was a gay Jamaican male nurse; a great guy I often spent sleepless evenings playing cards with in the lounge.

He tried to assure me by saying, "Don't worry, Mon. It's just a little prick."

Personally, I thought that was just adding insult to injury, but apparently he was talking about the feel of the catheter going in.

As a result of all this, I carry a small bag with me containing catheters, syringes, latex gloves, alcohol swabs, and anaesthetic ointment. I never expected that I would have to explain the contents of the bag to anyone. That was before I met the Canada Customs officer at a border crossing between Washington and British Columbia.

I’m still not sure why I was singled out to have my car searched that day, but when the officer found my little supply bag, he thought the syringe indicated that somewhere in my car he would find more drug paraphernalia and contraband. He routed around inside the bag, pulling out more syringes, gloves and swabs. When he pulled out a catheter, he demanded to know what it was.

So I told him.

I gave him a medical school-style lecture on the proper use of a catheter, how to insert it, and how to carefully feed the tube up the urethra and into the bladder. I explained how to make sure the bladder was fully drained, how to avoid infection, and what to do when one occurs. All the while I ignored his requests for me to stop. At first he tried to sound official. By the end he was pleading for mercy. It was clearly more information than he expected or wanted to hear. I wasn’t going to let him off easily, though.

I ended my lecture by saying, “…and when you are finished, you firmly grip the end of the catheter, and yank it out.”

That’s when his knees buckled slightly, and he told me in a cracking voice that I could go.

"But I haven't even told you about the kind that involves duct-taping a condom to yourself so you can pee in a bag strapped to your leg," I said.

Tears were starting to well up in his eyes, and he walked away from my car, before I could tell him the effects of removing the duct tape. I would have also told him that I haven't used that kind of catheter since a bellman at a hotel walked up and offered to check my bag. I guess I should have known he meant my suitcase.

Kingsley Amis once said that if you can't offend someone, there is little point being a writer. Words I live by. I would add, that if I can't make some overly officious border guard weep, there is no fun in being a paraplegic.