by Steve Wettlaufer -

Curiously Awkward

Gill returns to talk a little bit about some of the different people that blind folks tend to run into in our travels.

Having limited eyesight has made me become quite used to having to swallow my pride at times and ask for help. Unfortunately, not all help is created equal. Here are a few examples of some of the different types of people I’ve dealt with.

  • The Touch Happy person – This is that person who feels that in order to help me they must touch me at all times. Not ok. If I did that to you you’d call the authorities.
  • The uncertains – These people are often younger, and while they usually have good intentions, they have limited experience with blind people.
  • The Baby Talkers – These people boil my potatoes. I mean you try to have a normal conversation with them and they say something like “I didn’t know you knew that!” in that obnoxious children’s entertainer voice.
  • The Follower – This name is self-explanatory, but for those not in the know it’s someone who literally follows you around, and even though you’re kicking the tasks rear end they still won’t leave you alone.
  • The Forgetter – These are the types I love best. They’re more interested in the “you” than the “blind you” and will treat you and talk to you like you’re sighted. E.G. I was at my church yesterday, when one of the other congregants handed me a bulletin. I remarked “thank you, but I can’t see the writing.” She thought for little more than a second and replied with “I’ve never thought of you that way.”

And since we’re here and it kind of fits the theme, she also sent this along.

Being visually impaired, I’ve dealt with many questions and declarations from people in my lifetime. Little kids with their unfiltered cuteness and curiosity make me smile, but it’s those uneducated adults that have me shaking my head and sometimes getting angry. If you have any kind of disability, you’ve probably been subjected to some of these.

  • Where’s your worker? – Here’s the situation. You’re out doing some fairly average things, and you stop in at your favorite bakery to pick up that Italian herb bread that tastes like all sorts of more. You’re standing in line to place and pay for your order when someone asks, “Where’s your worker?”

    Note from Steve: The best response I’ve heard to this one came from my brother, who simply replied “Where’s yours?” That shut things down right quick.

  • Who sings that? – This is that assumption that all blind people know all things about music. Even my parents sometimes do this to me. #stereotype!
  • Can I pray for you? – As an Evangelical Christian I debated writing this one for fear that some of my fellow Evangelicals would see it. It’s one thing to pray for something, but it’s another to assume that the person is a “very filthy sinner” for having a vision issue or any other type of impairment. My feeling is that God made us a certain way for a reason.
  • You’re very smart for a blind person – This assumes that all blind people also have intellectual disabilities, which is obviously ridiculous.
  • Who dressed you today?- Come on people! I put my socks on one at a time like anyone else, and most of the time they even match!
  • You’re so special! – This is usually followed by a hand or head pat.
  • How do you wipe your butt? – This one boiled my potatoes and made me laugh at the sheer knuckleheadery of the question all at once.

Question

What’s the most embarrassing or degrading question you’ve been asked?

by Steve Wettlaufer -

And Now, Your Periodic Reminder Not To Be Asshats To Blind People


Lord knows if it does any good (judging by what happens when we have the temerity to go outside and try to live normal lives it’s often tempting to say it doesn’t), but now and then I feel it’s good to post one of these things in the hope that this time, maybe, just maybe, some of you will start catching on. Maybe you’ll stop yelling into our ears. Maybe you’ll stop asking complicated questions and then moving on to the next shiny thing after four seconds. Or maybe, as the one guy so eloquently puts it, you’ll “get your fuckin’ hands off me!” You probably won’t, but we can dream.

by Carin Headrick -

I know you Heavy Black Heart Emoji, But If You Use Too Many, I Loudly Crying Face And Your Post Becomes A Smiling Pile Of Poo!

Oh my god this is amazing, and I wish I’d written it. But since I didn’t, I’ll just link to it and give it a +1000.

Emojis are cute and they are everywhere. Some of them are quite amusing and I have learned about a few new ones over the years. I don’t mind a few here and there. But, when people’s user names, tweets and Facebook posts are encrusted in the things, it gets old really fast.

Look at the title of this post. Those are actual examples of some of the written out descriptions of emojis that we read whenever you put up a little face. Imagine if every time you came upon a given username, you had to listen to a million of those descriptions before hearing what they had to say. Now imagine if that username was also in a thread of tweets that you were reading. If you had to do that, would you actually stay around to hear what the user had to say? It’s especially frustrating when the tweet is shorter than the long and winding mess of emojis that is the username. Here’s a recorded example of just such a tweet.

Yes, one of those tweets just says “here’s a thumbs up gif.” Imagine having to wade through the globes, rainbows, avocados, masks representing the performing arts, just to hear “Here’s a thumbs up gif” and see a link to a video.

The short version is emojis are great and the descriptions let us in on the message you’re conveying with those little pictures. Every now and then, I still see a new one that cracks me up. But please, please, please use them sparingly. You don’t need a bunch of them in your username. Also, in a given tweet or post, you don’t need blue hearts, yellow hearts, green hearts, purple hearts, and pairs of hearts revolving, all in the same message, to convey your love for something. One heart would suffice.

Aside: People seem to use “heavy black heart” to convey something is very loved or close to their heart. I would assume if you have a heavy, black heart, you’re one miserable human. Am I wrong?

by Carin Headrick -

My Dog Shouldn’t Be The Only One Watching For Traffic!

I know this happened a month ago, but it is always relevant.

An acquaintance of mine wrote a post about the consequences of careless drivers to service animals, and I wish I could make this mandatory reading material for people who drive vehicles.

People never take into account that just because they didn’t actually hit the dog, they might have scared the dog so badly that they may stop working. People’s need to get through that intersection illegally may have just given an animal PTSD and shortened their career.

It’s also interesting to read all the comments from other people with similar experiences. I haven’t had many, but I have had a few. One time, Tansy actually had to back up and kind of twist around because a driver had to fly through a tiny stop sign in front of a drug store. Really? That was necessary? Another time that was especially weird, I was at a crosswalk at the mall here. I pushed the button, I waited, I was sure nobody was moving and all the cars I could hear were stopped, and somebody decided that they didn’t feel like stopping after all and drove right through as I stepped off. Without thinking, I said “cocksucker!” Somebody happened to be around, laughed and said I was right.

I’m lucky that none of these incidents have ended Trix or Tans’s career, but the point is they could, and they’re completely unnecessary. If people are crossing the street, people in their cars can wait. And just because I have a dog who is supposed to keep me safe doesn’t give drivers license to drive like assholes.

by Carin Headrick -

She Took Your Money, But Hopefully Not Your Independence

This story of someone befriending and then ripping off a blind lady is another example of something I could see very easily happening to me if I just did one thing wrong. It also illustrates why, when someone offers to “help me” by taking my stuff, I’m not exactly willing to hand it over. I actually had a woman come up and without a word try to take my groceries. She couldn’t understand why my response wasn’t brimming with gratitude, and was more brimming with scream and flail. For future reference, words are wonderful things. Ask if you can help, and ask how. In that case, if she opened the door, that would have been immensely helpful. I had no problem carrying the stuff, but it made it hard to reach in my pocket for keys. Silently stealing my food out of my hands isn’t exactly immensely helpful.

The woman, who wished to be identified only as “Sally,” took a bus from her home in Sudbury, Ont. to Toronto for a medical appointment. She chose to make the journey on her own, without her daughter at her side.
Sally said she passed the time on the hours-long chartered bus trip by chatting with a woman seated beside her, who spoke of a rough life, marked by a failed stint in rehab and sadness over the death of her mother.
“I felt sorry for her. And then she was telling me she had no place to go,” Sally told CTV Toronto, explaining that her travel companion asked if she could go to Sally’s hotel room in the city.
“She asked to stay here, and I told her she could,” Sally said, recalling how they chatted for hours. But when Sally went to the bathroom, she says the woman rushed out of the hotel room.
“I came back out, and she was passing by me to go out. She said she was going to the vending machine,” Sally said. “(It) seemed weird, so I went and checked my jacket and my wallet. All my money was gone. I had $800 in there. She took my money.”
Sally said she rushed to the front desk, shouting after the woman. She was told the stranger was last seen getting into a cab. All she had left was the $100 she hid in her bra.

Good on her for having $100 in her bra. I would not have done that. But I also don’t carry that much cash. But that doesn’t mean someone couldn’t try to take something from me. One time, when I was in the states, I had some US cash, but since the bills all feel the same, I had different denominations in separate bundles with paperclips on them. After some money had been spent out of the 5’s bundle, it had the same number as the 50’s bundle. I went to tip the airport guy, and was quickly trying to find the right bundle and the right bill. If he hadn’t been honest, he could have taken me for 10 times what I was intending to offer. It can happen that easily, and especially for someone who might not be used to doing a little extra planning, like this woman who’s only been blind for 8 years.

I would like to believe that \I have a good gut instinct and 9 times out of 10, I obey it if something feels wrong, but there’s always that 10th time. I remember some circumstances where I have taken a ride or an offer of assistance during a particularly snowy night, and that gut has been screaming “Do you want to get killed? What the hell are you doing?” and I have done it anyway. Thankfully it’s turned out ok, but I’ve arrived home questioning if I have lost my mind.

I don’t know if I would have let a stranger share my hotel, but I am not blaming Sally. I’m just saying that a slick con artist probably would have found another way to get what they wanted if I didn’t pay attention.

Thankfully, the person who did it surrendered to police, and Sally got her money back and more thanks to a GoFundMe campaign, but still.

As one blind person to another, I really hope that Sally continues to travel alone, and her daughter doesn’t try to persuade her that she can’t do this. Honestly, most of the world isn’t made up of arseholes like that. Just learn from this, and I don’t mean turn into a hard-hearted person. Just develop a gut instinct and if you want to help this poor stranger, figure out a way to help without bringing the person too far into your world.

by Steve Wettlaufer -

This Boils My Potatoes

Gill has a question. I’m not going to answer it myself since complaining about shit is one of the reasons this place exists and anything that’s already happened has likely been covered, but the rest of you can feel free to have at it.

Do you have pet peeves, or things that make you just want to dump a glass of ice water on someone? Of course, everyone does. If you have a disability you might have some of these potato boilers as I call them.

In Someone Else’s Shoes

One day I was talking to a friend of mine, and he asked what my pet peeves were. I told him that I hate when people assume:

  1. That I know or want to hang out with their blind cousin.
  2. That I don’t wash frequently, and bring bed bugs.
  3. That because I’m blind it’s ok to say something like “wow! Your smart` in a tone that means “you don’t have brain damage? I thought all blind people did.”
  4. That I always have someone with me.
  5. That it’s ok to violate me with out asking. E.G. if I’m standing minding my own business at the street corner don’t just grab me!

He thought about it for a moment and before I get to his I must give background. My friend was born in Cambodia in 1979 during the reign of The Khmer Rouge. At three weeks old a bomb hit his home leaving him with severe burns to 70% of his body and traumatic brain injury. Here’s what he considered his potato boilers.

  1. When someone suggests that it’s a good idea for him to go kill himself to end his pain.
  2. That he’s Chinese, even though some relatives of his came from there hundreds of years ago, he self identifies as Cambodian.
  3. That his mom could give a good pedicure, come on people it’s 2017 let’s be civilized here!
  4. That one or both of his parents committed horrible sins and that’s why he is the way he is.
  5. That he can’t speak English very well.

My challenge for you is to tell me some of your potato boilers {pet peeves} let’s start a discussion.

by Carin Headrick -

The Pain In My Brain Is Caused Mainly By The Cane

Meet another group of police officers who need to learn the difference between a white cane and a weapon. This happened last year in Winnipeg, but I finally got around to writing it down.

It seems that Steven Stairs was walking from a bar to a payphone, and he had the misfortune of being in the same area where they were looking for a man with a concealed weapon. He had an ID cane on his hip, and they thought it was a weapon. They asked him to stop, but being legally blind, he didn’t know they were talking to him, so kept moving, and that’s when they tackled him. They say he was drunk and disorderly. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know, but I would at least be disorderly if I was suddenly tackled by a bunch of unknown folks for doing absolutely nothing. Come on, wouldn’t you?

An ID cane
Yeah, that is a scary weapon…if you’re a toddler maybe.

The “dangerous weapon” in question, if his ID cane looks like any other ID cane I’ve ever seen, was one of these. You can’t even use these things as a proper cane to tap obstacles, because you’ll probably break it. I’m sure if you really tried you might be able to bruise someone with one of these, but that’s if you’re really trying, and if they stood there long enough to let you.

In my googling to figure out if Stairs has followed up on his legal action he wanted to take against the police, I found out that this happened to another guy way back in 1989. This time, some police officers in California mistook the guy’s folded cane for a set of nunchakus. Ok, cops, let’s sit down and do a little comparison.

set of nunchakus
Not a white cane, though it would make getting through crowds much easier.

folded white cane
Dishing out beatings…to the ground as intended.

The officers thought because his eyes were open and he seemed to be looking at them, he wasn’t blind, even though his eyes were milky in colour. Ok, while we’re at it, watch this here video.

I wish I could find the old CNIB “not everyone who looks blind is totally blind” commercial, but it has been lost to history. Anyway, are we good now?

I know that sometimes police have to make split-second decisions and they think they see something that turns out to be not what they thought it was, but some of this stuff feels completely unnecessary. In all of these cases, people were walking, using a payphone and standing at a bus stop. None of them were running, lunging aggressively, or doing anything that would make the officer feel threatened, judging from the descriptions. In the case of the bus stop guy, why assume he can see your uniform. Identify yourself as police, and ask a couple of questions to make him realize you’re talking to him, and you’d soon find out that’s a cane, feel foolish and walk away, without needing to clonk the guy with your baton. In the case of the pay phone guy, say something specific like “Sir, this is the police, put down the phone.” to make him realize “gees, that’s for me and I should listen up,” and you could have likely been able to have a conversation. If I hear someone yelling “Stop!”, I’m not going to assume that’s for me unless you’re super close to me, and heck, I might want to get out of there faster in case some shit’s going to go down that I don’t want to witness in an up close and personal way. But I’m not running away because I’m evading you, I didn’t realize you were yelling for me.

I’m pretty sure police get some kind of awareness training to do with disabilities, but I’m starting to think it should be refreshed like CPR training so maybe a few less of us get our heads caved in unnecessarily.

by Carin Headrick -

A Different Type of Disability Etiquette Video

I saw this disability etiquette video which is full of supposed tips for us dealing with the public, rather than the other way around

and after I found the description, I had a really good laugh. I got most of it, but the disabled parking spot scene, the bathroom stall scary music bit, and the drunken puking person really needed description, so I’m glad it’s here.

We so need more of these. I wonder if she has done other videos.

by Carin Headrick -

Stop, Ask, Listen: Pretty Straightforward Stuff, Yes?

I know I have said it over and over and over again before, but I found someone else’s take on it that I thought was pretty well-written, and bonus, it included references to other “feel good stories” I’ve wanted to talk about, so double awesome! It also mentions an issue that I have talked about before, the issue of people getting so upset when I refuse their help. Yes, this is a thing. I don’t even have to be mean about it. I can say “No thanks, I don’t need a ride, I’m good,” and it feels like they sulk off in a huff. Or, I sometimes have to be aggressive, like when people don’t even ask me where I’m going and grab, or grab my dog’s harness or leash, and I loudly tell them to stop because that’s not ok and I get the pouty, snippy “I was only trying to help.” That’s great, but the first step in helping is asking what would be helpful.

Also disturbing is some people’s disregard for our feelings, as if we aren’t allowed to feel violated ever. The other day, I was on the bus and a woman said “I know I’m not supposed to pet your dog right now.” I said no now is not a good time. Then I told her that people don’t care, and pet her when we’re sitting on the bus. Keep in mind that she is sitting between my legs, and people just pet anyway. I said “not only is it bad because she’s working, but think about where you’re putting your hands! You’re getting pretty close to intimate at this point!” at which point the woman laughed uproariously. I couldn’t help it. I looked at her seriously and said “That wasn’t intended as a joke.” I don’t think she knew what to do. But in all seriousness, that was intended as an aha moment, not a ha ha moment, and although this woman seemed like a very sweet woman, her first impulse was not to be appalled or empathetic, but to think it was hilarious that I might not want to have someone’s hands there.

My friend’s mom also had a similar attitude, and if I wasn’t in the back of her car with a long day ahead of me, I would have eaten her for lunch. She told me that I wasn’t allowed to get upset, I just had to explain it nicely. “Please don’t put your hands practically in my crotch?” Really? This is a thing I must do? Incidentally, it isn’t. The person is lucky they don’t get slapped.

It kills me, because people can do studies where people show resistance at touching the private parts of a robot because they feel like they’re violating something. But they have no problem getting up close and personal with us. Great, we are considered less than human.

Anyway, this post does a great job, and hopefully it makes this stuff make a little more sense to people who don’t get why we get irritated

by Carin Headrick -

Kika The Spying Guide Dog

I read about this a little while ago, and had a few thoughts about it.

Amit Patel is a fellow who has recently gone blind, and he encounters a lot of jerks in his travels. So, he decided to attach a GoPro to his guide dog Kika and capture video evidence of said jerks. Unless I’m missing it, there are none of the aforementioned videos available to see, which is mildly disappointing. I guess he has used this video footage to get people at transit stations to be better trained, to report cab drivers for denying him access, all kinds of stuff, along with capturing the everyday incidents of people kicking his guide dog and other assorted run-of-the-mill crap people do, which his wife tweets about.

There are countless times where I’m pretty sure I know what happened, but I don’t want to assume the worst and be a jerk myself. For example, I hear the kissy kissy noise that usually means people are trying to talk to my dog. But there could be a toddler or a baby nearby that I just haven’t noticed yet. One day, I heard someone taking pictures and then someone else said “you should really ask her permission first”. I wondered if that was about me, but wouldn’t I come off as a pompous ass if I said “I’m offended that you took my picture.” and it wasn’t about me at all. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the proof of what did or didn’t happen?

I hope it’s easy to go through GoPro footage, because otherwise, his wife would have a full-time job going through the days events looking for jerks.

I don’t live in England where he does, but I really hope it’s not as bad as it seems every single day. I mean, I acknowledge that some people are special, but I’ve never been told to apologize for holding people up, or been deliberately shoulder charged. Most of the stupidity comes from people not looking where they’re going…I think, and then there’s the occasional numbnut that thinks I’m begging for money or I’ll take up all their time, or they say those offensive inspiration porn comments like “Oh just when I think I have it bad, there’s always someone worse than me…How do you even get up and face the day?”. I also think it’s harder to get people’s attention now because so many people are looking at their phones or wearing headphones. I’ve had to get a lot closer to people and face them because just speaking in their general direction isn’t going to cut it. Also, saying the words “excuse me” seems to get the response of people getting out of the way, rather than realizing that you want to ask a question. It’s like they default to the meaning of “excuse me” that requires the minimal amount of work. Or, they stop and wait, but they don’t say “Yes?” so you know you’ve got their attention. I don’t know what’s up with people not wanting to use their mouths lately, but it happens a lot. People will hold things out for me to take them and not say a word, like I’m going to know it’s there, even after we’ve had a whole blindness conversation.

I think part of it is that he hasn’t learned the trick of addressing a small group of people. If you yell “hello” at a whole crowd, you’re not going to get good results, but if you practically get right in a small group’s face and do the closest thing to giving eye contact and ask something, most times you will get a response. I have even chased people down when I’m desperate or *accidentally* given a leg a cane tap when I had my cane. Now I’ll sort of brush up against them and then go “Oh gee, sorry.” When they say that’s ok, then we’re talking. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but yelling at an in discriminant crowd is nearly always going to fail. Hearing the following quote makes me sad, if traveling in London and other big cities is really that bad. “Losing my sight is very lonely, if I’m travelling by public transport I’m sometimes like a scared little boy sat in the corner.”

I’m going to hope that since he has only been blind for a short time, maybe he hasn’t learned some of the tricks that have taken me a lifetime to learn.

Either way, good on him for catching some arseholes in the act and bringing them to other people’s attention.