Last Updated on: 31st May 2020, 08:41 am
Remember when I said that I thought evolution was removing people’s ability to see? Now I think they’re losing their ability to listen. People can hear, but they just can’t process what they’re hearing worth a shit.
Here’s one example. I went into the post office. I told the lady that I had to mail a few things, two of which were going to the U.S. and I’d brought another sheet with all the items and the addresses where they were going. Before I’ve handed her the sheet with the addresses on it, she asks me where that sheet is going. I told her that’s not going anywhere, that has the addresses where these other things are going written on it. then she starts trying to address one thing and goes “Oh! This is going to the States!” What did I just say? Am I speaking in foreign tongues? Listen for half a second and you’ll know what to do!
Another time, I was walking somewhere and I asked someone if I was in the vacinity of the Jewellery store. He just kept talking. “Go straight. You have a ways to go. Go straight. Keep going straight. straight straight straight.” Hey guy, I know I have to turn to get to the jewellery store, I just don’t know where.
Then there was the time Trixie had made an error and I wanted to make her get it right. There’ll be a whole post on that later. I asked a lady to stand right there so I could know if I was going the right way. She said “ok.” followed immediately by “good luck!” and her leaving! Thanks for comin’ out, lady.
And here’s a good one that happened today. the folks who run the disability pension stuff sent me a letter. “We want to see verification that you still have your guide dog,” it said. “Please send us some documentation.” But they didn’t say what kind of documentation it was they needed.
I phoned them. I said right off the bat that I was blind, I had tried to scan the letter, but it didn’t scan correctly, and that this was concerning my guide dog. The woman said she had to look up my file and needed my member number. I said I didn’t remember it. The robot of a woman immediately spit out “Well, it’s on every piece of print matter we send you…” she didn’t manage to finish before I was saying I just told her I was blind! Then I asked her how a blind person was going to quickly go look at some print. I mean I could scan it, but scans aren’t as fast as the glance she was expecting, and they certainly aren’t always accurate. After that, of course, then my name would suffice. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
She probably wouldn’t have pissed me off nearly as much as she did if she wasn’t the fourth person I met this week who was acting as if they were deaf. Am I really that hard to comprehend? Has English changed in a subtle way that has left me out in the cold? Or are people really going selectively deaf?
