Gayle Yarnall UNPLUGGED - Things Blind People Hate, June 2001

I think it is time to talk about some of the things that really can annoy blind people. If you can add to this list please let me know.

1. Those tiny little stickers on every single piece of fruit you buy. I try to remember to look for them and even when I do I miss them more often than not. I wonder how many I have eaten. Are they harmful to my health? Will they find hundreds of them in my coffin fifty years after I am dead? I try to pretend I don't notice my friends and family picking them out of the food I served them. Although my family likes to make of point of telling me they found them.
2. Pieces of paper taped to the outside of the stall door in a public bathroom. What does this little note tell me? Is there a County Fair going on this weekend? Has the bathroom been recently painted? If I flush the toilet will the entire bathroom flood? I think there should be a law stating that you can only put these notes up in case of an emergency.
3. Flight attendants who nicely tell you to wait in your seat and they will come for you if there is an emergency. These are the same people who can't remember to bring you your drink change or the water you asked for. Now why would I think that when the plane is falling into the ocean that they would come back to my seat and help me? If something happens I am out of there! I am not waiting for some overworked person to remember that I am in seat 24 F and then buck the tide of rushing humanity to come and help me!
4. Car door handles. When I become president of the United States I am going to pass a law that all door handles must be located in the same spot on every car door. I hate looking for car door handles! I don't think the car manufacturers have to worry. My past is far to colorful for me to ever consider running for president. The only way I could be president of anything was to start my own company.
5. Phone numbers that use cute little words instead of numbers. All right say you need to dial 1 800 help. The 1 800 goes without a snag. Now you get to H. You might remember that there is no letter on the 1 so you move to 2 and say, in your little mind, A B C. Now you move to 3 and do D E F. By the time you get to H you are cut off because you took too long! The problem with cordless phones is that they are too easy to throw across the room. Actually blind people can't throw things when they are angry because then the thing is lost until someone else finds it and then they know you threw it so what is the point?
6. Significant others who leave their socks on the floor. If you are blind and you like a clean house and your significant other looks at clean in a slightly different way, you have a problem. I have tried to give my husband certain spaces that he can mess up. This does not always work. (What a shock) My husband is encouraged to put all the junk he wants on the coffee table in the den but some times he gets creative. Last week he was out of town. Some day in the middle of the week I decided to sit in his recliner. Tucked nicely in the corner I found one of his socks. I knew they traveled in pairs so I had a little search for the second one. During the search I found the second sock on the floor, the shoes that went with them and a half-filled coffee cup of three-day-old coffee. back to list