BLIND WOMAN'S BLUFF

BLIND WOMAN’S BLUFF

Shh… this is a dangerous environment I am in, and I am not alone here. I didn’t really start here. I am talking into my mini recorder. My personal audio journal. Softly and quietly. I, Louise Ellison, I am not sighted ( I refuse to use the” B” word, but feel free, you sighted folks, to label me however you like, but don’t be insulting or pandering. We get enough of that elsewhere). Anyway, as I said, I didn’t start here. I started in my very own quiet, safe living room. Of course, any environment can be a dangerous one for folks like me. And this one is well, I wager even you sighted person would be a little unnerved.I must keep my voice down. I didn’t plan to wind up here, like I said,

When I say dangerous I am not talking about sky diving or bungee jumping or what’s the sport, parcour? I mean “any” almost any environment outside my sitting room for someone like me, can be full of risk Think about a creek or pond or swimming pool, anything holding a lot of water ( a bathtub under the right set of circumstances could mean danger for me) especially since the dog paddle is the extent of my aquatic skill,. Add ocean waves and you are talking big danger, especially for the non-surfers among us. Water turbulence aside, sharks and stinging jellyfish and pinching crabs and worse are down there! Hell, H2o in and of itself can be risky if you are not sighted like me. . Tenga cuidado! As they say. Just guzzling more than a gallon of H2O can give you (or me or anybody) a case of what’s called hyponatremia. Bad for the kidneys and the sodium levels in the blood. Guzzle it fast enough and you could do yourself in,. as in R.I.P. A gallon of water I can see, but imagine being me and not knowing that that ocean or pond or swimming pool is two steps in front of you? Two fatal steps and you are food for the fish. That’s all it takes. A white cane won’t help in the briny deep.

Like I said, I didn’t really start out to be where I am, not right away. I am not home in my easy chair with a safe cup of tea listening to some recorded book. There is no some crime podcast playing on the iPhone that “I” can’t see. No, there are places s that an unsighted woman like me can still entertain going to.And shall I say, getting away with?

I bet you are smiling and thinking well, what risky place could a sensible blind woman like Louise go to? Waving her cane around while trying to figure skate at the rink? Or maybe Louise is out there roller blading, hanging onto the side walls, whipping around on her skates with other not sited people? If such an activity existed. That would be going somewhere adventurous I guess. And I’ve slammed into a wall before, and fallen on my knees. But no, that’s not it either.

How about bowling, you ask. Perhaps a blind woman like Louise could send a bowling ball down the alley without making a pathetic fool of herself, you’re thinking? But that’s not it either. And what’s the worse that could happen? I knock down a pin boy in the bowling alley? I catch the toe of my figure skate and do a face plant? I’ve done worse.

Wait a minute. Does finding yourself on the path less taken always have to be about sports?

I need to lower my voice. No, I am someplace a bit shadier, a place you would never think an unsighted woman like me would find herself in. Or rather you might, once you hear my story. Stay with me while I change my tape.

Who is this Louise, anyway, who is so anxious to tell her story? I was not always an unsighted woman, not as a child, a teen or a young woman. And I when I could see as well as you do right now, I did those things above, yes, really. The skating and bowling, even a little swimming in the pool. Can you guess how I lost my sight? I was not in a dangerous environment. Just driving on the road, I always take watching the road before being blind sided by a drunken grocer named Alvin who was reckless and impaired, coming home from a football game. I suffered head injuries that included loss of vision and while I underwent three surgeries that did not fix my blindness, and went home with my white cane, he, the grocer, never went to jail. He just limped around for a while, paid a big fine, thanks to a good lawyer, and laid low. He even kept going to football games, for all I know. .Low-risk life, that life of his! But not mine!

I didn’t start out this way. But I have taken a different road. My environment is risky right now.

I took the biggest risk of all and broke into Alvin’s store. With the help of a needy and crafty sighted friend who also started out on another path. I have emptied Alvin’s cash register, yes, and even though I can’t see them, the bank will be able to see and count all those greenbacks and deposit them in Louise’s account. Enough to pay for all my surgeries and medical bills and put lots of cups of tea on my unsighted woman’s kitchen counter. Those (what do they call them “laundered” dollars?) will soon be available to pay for a good guide dog and all the tea that I can smell, if not see.

Oh, shhh… I must turn off my recorder row ….the door is opening; I hear the key turning.… I think they’re letting me go. Yes, yes. Those are my clothes and my belongings! Thank you, officer, it is glorious to be free and no need to apologize. That’s just what I was saying, who would believe that a blind woman would stray from the straight and narrow and attempt something as risky as burglary?

Outrageous. Yes, agreed, I, too, am sure that some diligent policeman or woman like yourself will round up the criminal.

Blind Woman’s Bluff indeed!