Playing the caped crusader

Self-styled “Superstumps” aka Paul Carter this month turns to the business of getting down on the streets

Right folks, I’m going to tell you a little story about something that happened to me recently, just for a change, that could have had horrible consequences. I know for a fact from speaking to other disableds that, although perhaps not in these particular circumstances, it isn’t something that just happens to me.

As I mentioned on this page last month, I usually know my limits. I’m aware of what I can and cannot do. Most of the time. However. Every now and then (and usually at 1am on a Friday night after one too many sherberts), my level of self-awareness plummets. For a brief second, I forget the whole short arms and legs thing and picture myself as some form of non-disabled demi-god. A rippling, muscle-bound athletic Adonis who could leap tall buildings in a single bound. Before usually being dumped unceremoniously down to earth, with a bruised ego and an even more bruised backside.

Nothing illustrates this more perfectly than the incident I’m about to mention to you. Picture the scene. It’s 1am (told you) and I’m stood in a taxi queue in Edinburgh, when suddenly, a rather distressing fight breaks out about 30 feet away between two girls. A fight that it has to be said was more than one-sided. After the initial excitement of getting some bonus DVD extra late-night cabaret died down, I looked around to realise that not one person was actually bothering to do anything to stop it. So, who else in this situation would be the perfect man to fly in to defuse this war with love and peace but Superstumps! It was at this point I decided with utter clarity and sense that I should immediately do my civic duty and wrestle these two scrapping harridans apart. 

Yes, you read correctly. Me, trying valiantly to break up a barney between two women. Two SCOTTISH women. Seriously readers, I could have been killed. Or at least singing three octaves higher for the rest of my life. I think I’d have been safer trying to get between two pitbulls scrapping over a packet of sausages.

Trouble was, once I got there, it quickly became apparent that not only was I two feet shorter than them both, I was also quite drunk. So I fell over. To make it worse, I pulled them down with me, so the three of us ended up rolling around on the kerb before a friend pulled me away before I could embarrass myself any further.

Next time, I’ll leave the crime-fighting superhero idea at home. Besides, my secret identity would be rubbish.