Five-Star Disability

Hi everyone!

This ought to be a quick blog, and a quick read for you!

For many people, those without vision loss, myopia or hyperopia, colour-blindness, and any other vision issues, can spot those pesky puddles, those potholes filled with water but look like solid ground, with relative ease. Right?

While those of us with vision issues, usually can’t see the puddle until we are standing in the middle of it!

About three weeks ago, I ventured out of my home to do an errand. It had been raining on and off that particular day. I was walking in an unfamiliar area, actually through a gas station, after locating their bathroom. I was walking towards the sidewalk, when suddenly, soddenly?, I found myself in ankle-deep water!

UGH! I said a few profanities and ambled on! My green shoes were soaked with water! Other than yelling insults, I could do not a thing!

I had not had that sort of incident for a long time! Yet, I did not buy socks; why bother? Wet shoes would make the dry socks wet in a second!

In another recent incident, I was at the mall recently, and it had just opened, I was heading to meet a group of students for an interview. And I am walking along, minding my own business, when someone rushes up to me, tries to steer me in another direction for some reason. I am sure the person is talking to me, being DeafBlind I hear nothing. But I do see, when I look towards the person, a rebuke ready to fly, when I see her looking down. I also look down and discover I’m walking through a puddle of something yellow.

Gross! Could I have walked through someone’s urine?

There was no Yellow Caution marker or anything to prevent people from walking through the puddle of pee, or was it?

I surmised that it was only juice or something similar. I did that bit of detective work when I kicked the cup, unintentionally of course!

In another example: from my years living in the northern city of Sudbury, where potholes are more numerous than Tim Hortons, I walked along a busy sidewalk, during mid March, when Winter was finally leaving the area. It was a warm day and, there was still a lot of snow, so much that the snow banks were higher than my mother in law!

What’s nice about northern cities, is that they know how to clear sidewalks of snow, even Toronto has a fleet of sidewalk snowplows! Those plows will clear the snow, making two snow banks, one for each side of the sidewalk. While this helps us pedestrians, it shields us from wayward cars, tsunamis of road slush and salt! However, on the downside, those twin snow banks can be as deep as river without drainage! And, if suddenly there is a week of arctic weather, with temperatures in the negative teens, those rivers will become curling rinks!

I’ve had the unfortunate experience of walking into a huge series of lakes, while hopping from dry “land” to dry “land,” maybe successfully landing on “land” or in the water… I couldn’t escape, remember there are two snowbanks, both are over 4 feet tall. I had no choice but to continue on my way, frozen toes and all!

I’ve also walked into that gauntlet of a sidewalk with four foot snowbanks on both sides, then fall on my ass because of ice! That is nature for you!

I’ll settle for my Vancouver, which gets snow, and it rarely stays around for a few days! It hardly stays long enough to write home about!

I tell my boys to watch out for the puddles, as if they are predators. But, they only make the foot wet, and on odd occasions, they lead to falls, which can drench the posterior of any person!

Be careful out there!

Thanks for reading!

And special thanks to that person who tried to steer me away from the juice… I don’t think I thanked her properly!

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