Disability of the Month

GOSH!!! I just got off the phone with yet another consumer with fibromyalgia! The disability of the month. I wish I wasn’t as cynical as I am. I try to be nice to these folks who call with this so called disability. Many time my voice betrays me and the caller realizes I am not as attentive to his/her needs as I might be. They just blow me away. These guys treasure their “disability” infant. They love to talk about it, interrupt your conversation with someone else to ask you a “crip” question. They thik they are in the crip club because the brow beat their physician long enough for him to crumple and bestow on them their “disability”. Once they have their “disability” they cannot get to the DMV to order their set of coveted “Disability” parking plates then it’s on to Disability Determination Services to start the process to get on Social Security and what ever else entitlements they can fill out a form for—while all the time complaining about how tired they are. Really, it’s a true life version of a Seinfeld episode. These folks can be entertaining, play them out, give them all the referral you would to someone with a real disability. Send them here and send them there. They are so appreciative like you are the first person to treat them and their “disability” like a real issue. Like you cared—sometimes they even cry. But, I know, “they never got the loving every kid ought to get”* West Side Story. They are searching for a mothers or father’s love, a reason to sleep or just a better parking place.