DEAR SAINT VALENTINE:

LESS KATHERINE HEIGL, MORE JACUZZI TIME, PLEASE

By Heidi Johnson-Wright

Dear Saint Valentine,

I hope this letter finds you well. I understand you were martyred in the second century A.D., though. So, depending on whose version of the afterlife is accurate, you might be doing really well. Or not.

Anyway, I’m writing to you to ask for a little good mojo. Not for me, really. But for all of my brothers and sisters in mobility-impairment cripdom. You know, us folks down here who limp, use canes and walkers or who like me, roll from point A to point B. Disabled people who struggle to get around and so are very obviously disabled.

I need your help in particular because, well, this whole mating game thing can be kinda tricky. First impressions are big. If you throw in a funny walk or a pair of crutches or – heaven forbid -- a wheelchair, many folks won’t see you as top shelf dating material.

It doesn’t help that a lot of non-crips – who are otherwise nice, bright people – buy into millennia-old stereotypes. Maybe you know the one that says we’re drooling, sex-starved perverts. Nobody dates us, because we’re crips, duh! So without a romantic outlet, we become like overly-wound watch springs ready to snap any second. And who wants to date someone who can’t wait for sex until after dinner at Red Lobster and a predictable rom-com starring Kate Hudson or Katherine Heigl?

Other non-crips will take issue with me. They’ll say “No, not me! I know crips aren’t sex-starved pervs.” Of course not. Instead, they’re certain that, when it comes to carnal pleasures, crips are utterly uninterested. We’re angelic inspirations in a semi-arrested state of development. We sit round weaving potholders, resigned to our chaste, asexual existences. And who wants to date someone unwilling to put down a potholder and jump buck-naked into the Jacuzzi?

Please don’t disregard my concerns simply because I’ve been off the dating market for more than a quarter century. Yes, it’s true that when I got married, Milli Vanilli had yet to be discredited. But I can remember back to my early college days before I met my husband. I lived in the only girls’ dorm on campus that was accessible to female wheelers.

Boys would sometimes start randomly dialing dorm phone numbers, hoping to get an anonymous attractive girl to talk to them. If they found out you lived on first floor Prentice, though, they hung up with lightning speed, since it was widely known across campus as the location of the female gimp ghetto.

No “let’s meet for beers” or “how about we go to the midnight screening of Eraserhead?” No siree.

So, St. Val, can you find it in your heart to throw a little love toward crips who may be struggling to find Mr. or Mrs. Right?

It’d be most appreciated.