The Caption on this picture was ”Hard to Get Dressed Without Thumbses“. I know exactly how you feel sometimes little guy! Sometimes I feel like I have the coordination of a drunken monkey, but I do managed to at least get myself fully dressed most days (even if I don’t always match).
I will be the first to admit, most of the time I go through life mostly oblivious to a lot of things around me. I think when you grow up with differences like missing digits or limbs, its easy to forget the fact that you are different some times. I love lifes little reminders sometimes. I took a road trip with my brother (who I may talk about more at some point, depending on how he feels about it) over the 4th of July weekend. We had a little bad luck with our rental car and ended up having to take a couple of cab rides. I needed to go to Walmart to get a phone charger for my cell phone and since we were stuck without a car at that moment I called another cab. I am not sure I really consider myself a people person, but I don’t have any trouble talking to strangers (sorry Mom, you really did teach me better). I make small talk with the cab driver on the way to Walmart, and as he pulls up to drop me off he says “I’ll pull over there and wait for you in “the crip zone”. People parking in handicapped spaces (that obviously are not handicapped) is a pet peeve of mine so I wont go into that, but I was slightly amused at his obvious contempt toward people less physically able than himself. I personally think that’s kind of sad, but I was amused at how casual he was about it. I come back out of Walmart and tell him they don’t have what I need there and I need to the Best Buy that is just down the road. His answer to that was, “that’s good, there will be less white trash there to deal with”. I was happy to hear that he was an equal opportunity hater. If you are going to have contempt for people that aren’t exactly the same as you, there is no use wasting all that contempt on just one group of people, right? Needless to say there was definitely less small talk on my part on the ride back to our hotel.
I had already missed a day of work and we were trying to make up some time on the way home, but when we saw this sign in the middle of Kansas we both knew we would be stopping. 
I will go ahead and tell you, “Roscoe the miniature Donkey” was very disappointing, but we were really there to see the cows with extra legs. We stopped at this little building on the side of the road with a big fenced in area behind it. We paid our $6.95 each to go in and see the “attractions” they had. This place was really a mix of road side gift shop, miniature zoo, and animal sideshow. You walk through the door into the large fenced in area and its only then that you realize this is just a little farm with a few animals, two of which have extra legs. Most of the people that walked through this place spent a total of about 10 minutes outside and then headed back into the gift shop. We walk out there and pretty much ignore all the other animals and start looking for these cows. We find this little pen with a few cows in it and sure enough two of them have extra legs. One was a full grown cow with one leg growing out of the top of its back, and the other was a calf with two legs growing out of its side. Me and my brother watched these cows for a few minutes, obviously viewing them in a slightly different light than I am sure everyone else that was there. We both decided that taking our pictures with the 5 and 6 legged cow might be a little too much. I mean I am all for self exploitation, but those cows just deserve better. So we made our way back up to the building, only to find that we couldn’t get back in and were stuck in this fenced in area, or death trap as I referred to it at the time. I asked Josh if he had ever seen The Island of Dr Moreau, he said no and so I told him that if he had ever seen it he would be a little more worried about us being in that situation. For a moment I felt like this was a total trap, and they had just been waiting for the two of us. Turned out I was just trying to go in the wrong door. Whew, that was close!
Life has been kind of crazy the last two weeks, but it is starting to level out a little bit so it’s time to get back to work on this project. I had an interesting road trip over the 4th of July weekend that I want to talk about as soon as I have a little more time. The main things I want to discuss are the cab driver that I had the pleasure of talking to for 9 miles and a couple of cows in Kansas that have an extra leg or two. Hopefully over the next couple of days I will have a chance to tell you more about that trip, as well as some other stuff I have been working on.
It’s that time of year again. Time to get out of town for a couple of days and head to Colorado. I have been super busy the last week or so, haven’t been able to post nearly as much as I would like to. Probably wont be spending much time near a computer for the next few days either so I thought I would just leave you all with a few thoughts before our upcoming Holiday.
I hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July. While you’re celebrating take time to think about all of the people that are on foreign soil (whether you agree with why they or there or not, that doesn’t change the fact that they are there fighting for our freedoms and we are home enjoying said freedom) taking care of business so that you and I don’t have to.
Most importantly, remember to be careful when you’re lighting those fireworks, unless you want to end up looking like me and writing your own blog about being just a little bit different :)
Me hanging out with the family on 4th of July last year
