The Tragically Unhip

I was looking through The Globe and Mail’s Week in Pictures and came across a 16-year-old named Aaron Fotheringham from Las Vegas. The kid has spina bifida and has been in a wheelchair since he was three, yet he’s doing backflips in Las Vegas skate parks. I can’t even come close to doing anything remotely cool like that, and I have two fully functional legs. What’s more, he calls his sport hardcore sitting, and he’s been touring the Western world to promote it.

Personally, I have a different definition of hardcore sitting—and it’s exactly what I’ve been doing all day. I will continue to hardcore sit, perhaps even take a break or two to hardcore nap and hardcore nibble on the lack of food in my fridge.

But here’s a question: If someone without a disability were to hop in a wheelchair and take it to the skate park, would that be legitimate hardcore sitting? Are the non-paraplegic allowed to partake in Fotheringham’s version of hardcore sitting, or is that kind of like that crappy Johnny Knoxville movie where he tries to compete in the Paralympics? Hmm.

If I were cool, I would probably be too cool to skateboard/BMX/hardcore sit. As it is, I am merely too lazy, and I have the coordination of a cross-eyed sloth with two left feet.