A Decently Modest Proposal

Hey you! Yes you, reading this story! Don’t worry, this isn’t some piece of meta fiction, I’m dictating what I say to a gracious volunteer who’ll post it for me. I’ve got an offer for you – and no, not like a door to door salesman peddling dull kitchen knives or what have you. You see, my offer is as genuine as a baby’s first laugh.

My name is Donald Basemore-Cooper – quite a mouthful I know, my friends call me Donnie, DB, Coop, Basement, and so on, take your pick, they're like paint samples. But the people I do business with? Oh, they call me a lifesaver.

Believe it or not, old Donnie here knows a thing or two about you. I’d wager nine out of ten of the people reading this are sitting down. Maybe you’re lucky number ten though, standing up at work, browsing your phone, blessed enough to have clicked this offer. Maybe your job doesn’t let you sit down, like a cashier or that guy who takes the stubs off movie tickets. Regardless, whether you’re sitting or standing, you’ll realize that your feet probably hurt! Maybe a little, maybe a lot, maybe sitting down is just a temporary oasis from the desert of swollen soles and pained pinky toes. But we’ve all been there, we all know what it’s like to have our dogs barking!

Think about it. From the moment you were born, your mommy or your daddy had a countdown going for the day you’d take your first steps. Maybe they even filmed it, a joyous occasion to look back on! But was it really? Because after that, you might’ve found walking fun for a year or two. Then you might’ve graduated to running, sweating off the sugar highs you’d get from your candies and such. But at some point, I’m confident walking and running just became… y’know, vanilla. Plain and simple. Boring even. Hell, I’m taking it one proverbial step further and guessing it’s just plain tiring too!

Now as an adult, say you can’t find a parking space close to where you need to go. Now you gotta walk. Or maybe the bus station isn’t that close to where you work – we haven’t exactly designed cities around those of us without cars. Maybe your job keeps you on your toes: go run this, go clean this, go serve that table of assholes their food knowing they won’t tip you. More walking! And even if you try and relax on a weekend, guess what? How long can you last until you go shopping at a store, or even a mega shopping center, floor after floor dedicated to glorious capitalism. A shrine to enjoyment and consumerism! But your feet will have hell to pay!

And I know, I can hear some of you thinking to yourselves, “But Donnie, I like to walk, run, and jog! Hell, I eat marathons for breakfast!” I hear you; I promise you still gotta listen to my offer. You see, why do we do those things? If you ask me, it boils down to three different reasons.

First reason, maybe you like an early morning stroll through the woods because you gotta de-stress. It’s calming, serene, reminds you of your momma’s womb. I get that! But it can’t be the only way you know how to destress. I'm sure your buddies the bed and the couch would like to chime in and remind you how relaxing they are! And if you still wanna be in nature, watch a bird or two, park benches are right there, singing a siren song to rest your feet.

Second reason! Weight loss! You wanna be sexy, you wanna look thin, you gotta shave those pounds off of you! But I’m sorry to say, it’s really all a sham. Society made up these rules as to who counts as hot, who gets to be on the big screens and such. They want you to look thin because there’s more money for them in looking thin. Exercise machines, designer clothes, beauty products – all that costs way more than a bag of chips and cookie dough if you know what I’m saying. And then they have the gall to make food so tasty yet so fattening to keep this endless cycle going. You pay money to get thin only to pay money to get fattened again. That’s the secret to beauty. It’s just money wearing a mask. Don’t fall for it, live how you want, don’t worry about running to get thin.

Reason the third! Maybe you run for sport. Y’know, it happens, you could’ve had a lazy eye and couldn’t hit or throw a ball right, but boy howdy you sure could run like hell in a straight line! Now, your pal Coop here wasn’t much of an athlete, most of my running came from evading the school bullies – who are now hopefully adult has-beens and burnouts. But that spirit of competition is a wonderful thing! It’s food for the heart and soul, but it won’t last. Sooner or later your body gives out and you’ll just be yearning for the glory days like a college alum still visiting their frat house on homecoming.

You can’t run forever!

So you see where I’m coming from now? Almost everyone reading this declaration of mine is going to tragically fall victim to one day being so pained, so hurt, so egregiously tired. All from walking. Biologically speaking, we aren’t even designed to be standing up straight for so long. Our spines are an affront to God if anything!

So, what do we do? What is Mr. Basemore-Cooper here leading up to? What is my offer to you, my dear reader?

Well, let me tell you a story. Growing up, my grandfather, or my Boompa as I called him, lived on his own. He’d come visit me, walking up the three stone steps to my house, back and knee pains the whole time. Of course, I didn’t know at the time how much he hurt. He was just Boompa to me! So friendly, so kind, bringing over an apple or two to help keep the doctor away for me, y’know? As a kid, I’d run around the house or the yard, trying to play with Boompa, never realizing how he struggled to catch up. Then, inside, I’d jump on his lap as he sought relief on our couch. He’s the one who taught me “my dogs are barking” instead of saying “my feet hurt” – hell, he’d put a spin on it with, “the whole pound is a-barking Donnie!”

And then he’d leave. To go home to his apartment, up several flights of stairs. All by himself. And I’d beg him to stay, “please Boompa, I wanna play every day,” and I’d wonder why my parents were just letting him go off by himself. In retrospect, it’s even worse. They had to have known his legs were hurting but they basically kicked him out into the cold every time he finished visiting. Why couldn’t Boompa just live with us? Would it really have been that hard?

Don’t you get ahead of yourselves, dear readers. There isn’t some skeleton in Boompa’s closet, no sins of the grandfather, no wicked reason why baby Donald couldn’t see him every day. The real reason? Independence. As long as he could walk, he insisted on taking care of himself, living on his own, and thus seeing me only a dozen times a year. Tragic, right, your hearts must be breaking, boo hoo for Donnie? Nah, I get that I was still lucky to even have Boompa.

But you know who wasn’t lucky? Boompa. Knees sore, feet aching, a lifetime of walking amounting to chronic pain. It really shouldn’t be a surprise that he couldn’t cross the street at a normal speed. So if you think about the number of stupid people combined with the number of impatient people in this country, it was really only a matter of time. Boompa couldn’t possibly react fast enough to that car.

Don’t grab your tissues and start weeping, he lived. It’s actually funny how tires crushing your bones, grinding your flesh, and spilling your blood across the pavement isn’t enough to kill you sometimes. I wonder if Boompa found it funny too, lying there, waiting for the ambulance, dragging himself away from the mangled remains of his legs. Just a clean cut, the kind that would make a butcher blush with how precise it was.

Just like that… no more legs and feet to hurt.

Just like that, Boompa was at home, my home, to live with us. I could talk to him all day, my parents would take care of him, and he’d never have to walk again in his wheelchair. I couldn’t be happier that he lived out the last few years of his life with us, fully provided for and loved. I’m sure he’d agree – I’ll have to ask him when I go to heaven.

And we could’ve had all that for longer if he had just gotten rid of his legs sooner, don’t you think?

What I’m proposing is a free service, all done by me on the house, to give yourself the same kind of life Boompa had at the end. Fully taken care of, free from the stress of walking. You’ll find new ways to relax, new games to play to pass the time, and losing weight? Well, a leg is a little under a fifth of your weight, so losing both? You’re talking upwards of fifty pounds off, all at once, way more efficient that exercise ever could be! C’mon, working out is hell, all the sweat and the pains and finding time to do it! I’m telling you, my offer is way better than that!

You might be hesitant because you don’t have a spare wheelchair lying around. No worries, part of the service is that I’ll help you procure one suited just to your needs. What about housing, making sure you can still move around? Your boy Donnie is right here! We can rearrange your house to be a more wheelchair friendly space! What’s that? Your job? Going out in public? Right now, I’m working on pushing the government to pass legislature to increase disability pay. Most public places have to be wheelchair accessible already, but with an increase to monthly payments, you’ll have more than enough free money to use on both living and entertainment. You’ll see it really won’t be a big deal to use ride sharing services once you have the money from selling your car.

How is the procedure done? Well, there are too many hoops to jump through to doing this in a hospital, God forbid us red blooded Americans exercising the freedom we’ve been promised. I’ll gladly come to your house instead. Just give me your address and we’ll pick a time that works best for you. Maybe you want the kids out of the house, maybe you’ve been looking for an excuse to get off of work on a Monday. Certainly won’t be going back to that job after we’re done!

I’ve got my bag of tools with me here. We’ve got some chloroform here, a new set of rags, some ropes too – I find it decreases the squirming if you happen to wake up. You don’t have to worry about carpet stains either, I’ll throw down a tarp. We could even set you up in bed for maximum comfort as well. Then you’ve got your choice of tool. The chainsaw is a wonderful choice for those horror fanatics out there, plus the noise will drown out any screaming that might occur – again, if you wake up. But maybe you want quick and painless, or at least as painless as possible. That’s where the elegant Japanese katana comes in, fully capable of slicing through bone. Maybe you want to savor the moment you give into a lifetime of relaxation and sitting. Or maybe you find your jollies from a little bit of pain here and there – no judgment here! But I’ve still got my trusty hacksaw here, still good to go from the first time I did this procedure! Now the forums will tell you that a bone saw might cut better but ignore that hogwash. With enough elbow grease and a can do attitude, my hacksaw and I will easily get your legs on a one way trip to Aruba, never to bother you again.

Don’t you worry a hair on your pretty head, I know what I’m doing here. It’s not my first rodeo, I’ve had plenty of satisfied customers in the past! It does take a little convincing, but if you met me in person, my pearly white smile would knock your socks off. Be warned ladies, I’m quite the charmer! I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up chitchatting mid-procedure too! Why yes, I’d love to take you out to dinner in your fine new wheelchair this Friday! I’ll hold the door open for you and make sure you get home safe before I lift you and tuck you into bed, nice and snug.

Now, in full honesty, not everyone is fully onboard with this procedure yet. But I really am doing people a huge favor here – the couple of times they hesitated to say “yes” didn’t stop me from grabbing the old chloroform here. I remember this one gentleman, surely an upstanding and strong man, didn’t hesitate to start crying and begging me to stop once he was tied down. Those tears reminded me a lot of myself when I used to cry when Boompa left. Oh how things got better for me, and soon they’d get better for him too!

In fact, this young gentleman typing this all out is my latest customer! You see, I'm not the best with computers, so we cut a deal. He could keep one of his legs if he helped me spread my word far and wide, so here we are! If only you could see him hobble, a little tear in his eye. There won’t be any tears once he moves into his wheelchair, with my help of course. I'm not a monster after all.

So folks, if you’re interested in changing your life for the better, taking a stand against pain by sitting down permanently, then I’m your man! For Donald Basemore-Cooper, call 555-NO-LEGS4ME! You wanna be free, call your pal DB!

And make sure you hold onto those legs once they’re off you because I’ve got a great home recipe to share with you in the kitchen!