Q: How are you?
A: Well, I was born and I continue to exist. That’s how I am. What kind of a question is that?
Q: Can I try out your assistive device?
A: Sure, if you want the disability that comes with it.
Q: If you could have just one day of not being disabled, what would you do?
A: If you could have just one day of not being incredibly rude, what would you do with all the spare time?
Q: So what do you do all day then?
A: Be amazing.
Q: How does being disabled feel?
A1: Like pudding.
A2: How does it not feel?
A3: How does being abled feel?
When you hear ‘disability’ and ‘joke’ in the same sentence, it’s usually not a good sign. But that’s not always the case.
I thought we could all do with a bit of a laugh and that some of you might enjoy this video. It’s a routine from the very popular Australian comedian and television presenter Adam Hills, who has an artificial leg. Hills doesn’t refer to himself as disabled, but he’s known for talking about disability issues and often having a sign language interpreter at his shows.
Transcript:
I went out with this girl once, we’d been together for a little while, and we got back to her place for the first ever time, and it was that moment of kind of sitting, you know, on the edge of a bed, and she went, ‘ooh, do you want to stay the night,’ and I went, ‘oh, yeah all right.’ She went, ‘Oh, okay, I’ll be back in a second.’ And she walked out of the room. And I sat there going, ‘awww – oh, shit. I haven’t told her. Well now what do I do?’ You know what I mean? Well I can’t wait for her to walk back in and just go, ‘look! [pretending to hold up his prosthetic] It fell off.’ I considered doing a magic trick with a blanket [pretending to flourish a blanket and reveal not having a second leg]. I sat there for ten minutes thinking a) where has she gone for ten minutes? And b) How am I gonna bring this up in conversation? What can she say to which I could naturally respond, ‘really? Well I’ve got one leg!’ [gestures in that direction] I’m not making this up, she came back in the room and went, ‘I’m really sorry, I’ve only got one pillow.’ [pauses for laughter, then repeats gesture] Ta da! She went, ‘ah, that explains it!’ ‘It explains what?’ She said, ‘I spent half an hour at dinner rubbing your foot under the table and you didn’t notice.’