LJ Idol week 23, The Dark Side
There are always people who want to pity me as a blind person. They don’t realize how fun it can be. Sure, it’s a disability, but that doesn’t have to make it a negative thing. There are all kinds of bloopers and fun things that make me laugh every day and can make blindness worth the hassle it can sometimes be.
There was the time I washed my hair in sun screen. It was really a pain to get out because it was so greasy.
One day I was making my morning cup of coffee, and needing to dress it up with a little cream I fished in the fridge for the gallon of milk. I poured a healthy amount into my mug, returned the jug to the refrigerator and lifted my coffee cup for that first morning swig of wake up juice. I took a healthy gulp and ran to the sink to spit it out. It tasted like vomit. I realized I had poured orange juice into the coffee instead of milk. Yuck! It did make me laugh though.
When meeting someone for the first time, or greeting them after not encountering them for a while I usually offer to shake hands even though it isn’t a tradition I favor. I’m not really one for touching people, but was at a disability event when I was introduced to a new guy. I reached out to shake his hand, before he had to apologize that he couldn’t shake my hand because he had no arms. I wanted to melt into the floor. We ended up both laughing which lightened the mood of the situation. A perfect example of how funny blindness can be.
There are all the little things like conversing with trees, light posts and parking meters, just to say hello or even to ask directions. When you realize you are talking to something non-human you want to run away, and hope no one is watching, but sometimes you just have to laugh. There are those times you sniff all the spices when cooking to try to find the right one, and add a dash of this or that to the cooking pot hoping that it was the herb which your recipe called for. The advantage to being blind is that you can make up new recipes without even trying. One of my favorites is grabbing the wrong end of my dog to pet. When it happens in public I wonder what people think of me. There was one time I was feeling for my dog’s tail on the bus, trying to make sure it was out of the way, and I grabbed his penis by mistake. I think he was probably as surprised as I was. Probably no one saw, but my laughing and blushing might have made them wonder what I was all worked up about. Another thing that happens quite often which I do not like is when I reach out, looking to find my way around an area, or feeling for a chair or table, and I grab a person instead. Sometimes it’s even a person’s body part that I wouldn’t normally touch in polite conversation. Then I just have to say, “Sorry, didn’t see you there.” Which makes me want to burst out laughing, because of course I didn’t see them.
I can remember when I was at guide dog school and one of the other students and I hid the coffee pot from the other students. We just moved it across the room, but since the other students were blind they couldn’t find it. It was a cruel trick as everyone stumbled around that morning looking for coffee. We also switched the dog food bin with a large potted plant, but put the dog food scoop inside the potted plant. Many people were confused when they went to feed their dogs. The dog food had disappeared and there was no coffee so it made for a rotten morning for some.
I think of blindness as a big adventure. Life is an adventure for all of us, but with a visual impairment thrown in it’s even more of an experience. As you add disability to life’s challenges you add different opportunities and experiences that others might not have. People ask me often, if there were a surgery would I want to be healed. I always say no. My lack of accurate sight is just a part of me. I’m used to it. I’m comfortable in my world. I’m enjoying collecting bloopers and funny stories to tell people along the way. It’s not pity I’m looking for, it’s fun times and more good memories. I could think of these things as annoyances, but really I choose to think of them as the funny moments that make up my life. The positive outlook is the best way to go,, making the dark side often the bright side of my life.
This week an evil trick was played on us participating in therealljidol. I thought I would be paired with redvelvetgrrl and ellakite but when the voting opened it turns out each group of three is in its own pole so my partners who I worked with have become my competition. I still urge you to read their entries and those of others, because there are some good entries this week.
There was the time I washed my hair in sun screen. It was really a pain to get out because it was so greasy.
One day I was making my morning cup of coffee, and needing to dress it up with a little cream I fished in the fridge for the gallon of milk. I poured a healthy amount into my mug, returned the jug to the refrigerator and lifted my coffee cup for that first morning swig of wake up juice. I took a healthy gulp and ran to the sink to spit it out. It tasted like vomit. I realized I had poured orange juice into the coffee instead of milk. Yuck! It did make me laugh though.
When meeting someone for the first time, or greeting them after not encountering them for a while I usually offer to shake hands even though it isn’t a tradition I favor. I’m not really one for touching people, but was at a disability event when I was introduced to a new guy. I reached out to shake his hand, before he had to apologize that he couldn’t shake my hand because he had no arms. I wanted to melt into the floor. We ended up both laughing which lightened the mood of the situation. A perfect example of how funny blindness can be.
There are all the little things like conversing with trees, light posts and parking meters, just to say hello or even to ask directions. When you realize you are talking to something non-human you want to run away, and hope no one is watching, but sometimes you just have to laugh. There are those times you sniff all the spices when cooking to try to find the right one, and add a dash of this or that to the cooking pot hoping that it was the herb which your recipe called for. The advantage to being blind is that you can make up new recipes without even trying. One of my favorites is grabbing the wrong end of my dog to pet. When it happens in public I wonder what people think of me. There was one time I was feeling for my dog’s tail on the bus, trying to make sure it was out of the way, and I grabbed his penis by mistake. I think he was probably as surprised as I was. Probably no one saw, but my laughing and blushing might have made them wonder what I was all worked up about. Another thing that happens quite often which I do not like is when I reach out, looking to find my way around an area, or feeling for a chair or table, and I grab a person instead. Sometimes it’s even a person’s body part that I wouldn’t normally touch in polite conversation. Then I just have to say, “Sorry, didn’t see you there.” Which makes me want to burst out laughing, because of course I didn’t see them.
I can remember when I was at guide dog school and one of the other students and I hid the coffee pot from the other students. We just moved it across the room, but since the other students were blind they couldn’t find it. It was a cruel trick as everyone stumbled around that morning looking for coffee. We also switched the dog food bin with a large potted plant, but put the dog food scoop inside the potted plant. Many people were confused when they went to feed their dogs. The dog food had disappeared and there was no coffee so it made for a rotten morning for some.
I think of blindness as a big adventure. Life is an adventure for all of us, but with a visual impairment thrown in it’s even more of an experience. As you add disability to life’s challenges you add different opportunities and experiences that others might not have. People ask me often, if there were a surgery would I want to be healed. I always say no. My lack of accurate sight is just a part of me. I’m used to it. I’m comfortable in my world. I’m enjoying collecting bloopers and funny stories to tell people along the way. It’s not pity I’m looking for, it’s fun times and more good memories. I could think of these things as annoyances, but really I choose to think of them as the funny moments that make up my life. The positive outlook is the best way to go,, making the dark side often the bright side of my life.
This week an evil trick was played on us participating in therealljidol. I thought I would be paired with redvelvetgrrl and ellakite but when the voting opened it turns out each group of three is in its own pole so my partners who I worked with have become my competition. I still urge you to read their entries and those of others, because there are some good entries this week.