(soft upbeat music)
Welcome to "Hadley Presents."
I'm your host, Ricky Enger, inviting you to sit back, relax,
and enjoy a conversation with the experts.
In this episode, Hadley staff join us
to share the funnier side of vision loss.
Our guests are Doug Walker,
Tiffany Mpofu, and Lisa Salinger.
Welcome to the show, everybody.
Yeah, it's great to be here.
Yes, thank you.
So elated to be here. Thanks.
So glad to have you all.
It is always a good time when Hadley staff can get together
and share with each other and with you,
and this promises to be no exception.
We're gonna have a fabulous time today
and hope you do as well.
So, before we get into our stories,
let's just take a quick minute
to get everyone to say hello.
So first off, we have Chief Innovation Officer, Doug Walker.
Give us a shout out.
Hey, it's great to be here, Ricky.
It's always fun doing these.
Awesome, and we have the one, the only,
Assistive Technology Learning Expert,
Tiffany Mpofu, welcome.
Hello, hello. Thanks, Ricky, for having me.
Glad to have you.
And also we have a hybrid, for lack of a better term,
Access Technology Specialist
and also sort of Assistive Technology Learning Expert.
So, wearing multiple hats, Lisa Salinger, welcome.
Thank you.
I'm still deciding exactly what I want to be
when I grow up, I guess.
Well, if you're anything like me,
you have a while to decide.
I'm not sure the growing up thing
has quite happened yet, but maybe someday.
So all of us here are blind or low vision,
and just like everyone else,
our lives have moments of mundane things
and then we have those really proud moments,
those triumphant things.
And then we have the ones
that should probably end up on the blooper reel.
We never want them to see the light of day,
except we thought it would be fun
to talk about those moments
'cause I think that they deserve some attention,
just as much as when things really go right.
So, we thought we would all share some stories,
where vision, or lack thereof,
has played some sort of role in making something happen.
So I think we're going to have a lot of fun with this,
and I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's stories.
So Doug, something tells me
that you have at least one awkward or funny story to share
about something that happened in public,
'cause naturally, a lot of these things,
they're never just you and so you can forget it and move on.
It's always in front of somebody else, right?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And this one is, my family actually knows this one
as the elevator story, right, so it has its own name there.
But this blooper happened just before COVID hit.
And my wife and I were, like, on vacation
at a hotel in New York City.
And this is kind of key to the story here,
but there was no braille in the elevator
that we were staying.
And the print on the elevator buttons was super tiny.
And so I memorized where the lobby button was.
My wife was like, "The lobby button's right there
and there's the fourth floor button there."
So I kind of got 'em where they were, right,
so I could at least get to my room and then to the lobby.
Anyway, they have a continental breakfast here.
So the next morning I tell my wife, you know,
"I'll run down and get us something."
And now I do have some remaining vision,
you know, enough to go down to the lobby and back.
So I decided to leave my cane in the room
so I could carry more stuff, you know,
gotta get more stuff in my hands.
And I didn't think to grab my phone either.
So I went on down to the lobby
and I got my hands full with a couple of muffins
and, like, a coffee and a coke.
And so I get back in the elevator
and there's already this woman in the elevator
and she has her hands, like, packed full,
fuller than me, of breakfast stuff.
And so with my little finger,
I, like, push the fourth floor button,
which was the button for my floor, and she says 14.
So I tell her, you know, "I'm visually impaired."
And I can't see the 14 button,
so I'm expecting her to sort of direct me, like, to up
and to the right or whatever.
Well, it turns out that she doesn't speak English.
And so she doesn't understand a word I'm saying.
And her hands are, like, stacked full
of this breakfast stuff,
like, awkward to even try to put down.
And remember, I left my phone back in the room
so I don't have my magnifier app with me, so I can't look.
So I'm getting down.
It looks like I'm sniffing the wall.
I know she didn't understand that I couldn't see it.
So I don't know, she's trying to figure out
what I'm doing, you know?
They were just too small to see. I couldn't see 'em.
So anyway, the elevator door opens up on the fourth floor,
which again is my floor.
And so all I can say is,
"I'm so sorry, you know, I'm sorry."
And I just got off the elevator
and the elevator door closed.
And then that's the last time I've seen that lady, right?
But I felt so bad about that.
I tell you, Ricky, you better believe
that I always take my cane
and my phone with me now, no matter what, so.
Yep, now you know, lesson learned.
You know, I bet somewhere
there is a lady right now sitting
and talking on a podcast about the rude American
who couldn't even be bothered to press the button for her.
Probably so. I think she was French or something.
Anyway, she knew how to say numbers, but that was it.
So anyway, probably so, Lisa, probably so.
Oh my gosh, I love it.
Lisa, something tells me
you have at least one or two funny things to share.
So you're up next. What do you got?
I have a story about attending the end of a
silent movie.
I was in junior high, and for whatever reason,
my classmates were going to see a silent movie.
And my itinerant teacher,
between her and the mobility teacher,
they were always looking for extra time to work with me.
And so I went and I worked with her
and we came to a stopping place,
and it was about five minutes
before the movie was supposed to end
and the next class was going to begin.
And, you know, she felt it important to say to me,
"Don't forget, they're gonna be watching this movie.
Go in quietly, try not to disturb anybody."
And some teachers organized everyone alphabetically
by seats, except for the blind kid.
And I was in the front right by the door.
But unfortunately that was not the case this time.
If they organized everybody alphabetically,
I was the third seat across in the third seat back.
So anyway, I walk into the room
and it is quiet, quiet, quiet.
And I have my cane.
And I'm trying to not make beautiful music off the legs
of the desks and chairs.
And I very quietly, and I was rather proud of myself.
I think I did pretty well,
moved hopefully quietly and quickly
'cause I didn't wanna block anyone's view.
And I found my seat and I sat down,
and I'm sitting there and thinking,
"This is the most silent of silent movies.
No one is coughing, no one is rustling, no one is anything."
I would think that silent movies
would even just have a music soundtrack.
There was nothing.
All of a sudden I heard this sound in the hall.
It was my classmates returning from the location
where they had been to watch the silent movie.
So all my caution and care was for nothing.
The really nice thing was that I was the only one
who knew of my little faux pas.
So every time someone mentions silent movies,
it kind of makes me laugh.
That's great. It's always good
when you are the only one who realizes what happens.
Oh my goodness. Yes. Those are few
and far between those, sadly.
Usually, it's, again, some kind of public spectacle.
Tiffany, do you have one
where it was definitely not just you
that was kind of in on whatever happened?
Oh my goodness, yes.
So this blooper happened at a grocery store.
I have a little bit of a backstory.
There was a particular teacher
that I had developed a bond with in junior high.
And so after going through junior high
and making it to high school, at that point she had retired,
but sometimes we still would run into each other,
like within the community,
but on this particular day at the grocery store,
it had been some time before I had saw her.
So I am doing some shopping
and I'm making my way up towards the front of the store
to go pay for my things, and then, so I see this person,
I'm at the front of the store and I'm like, "Oh, that's her.
It's been so long since I've seen her."
So I push my things to the side
and I am, like, going full speed
up towards the front of the store,
and I grab this person and give them this big huge hug.
And I'm like, "Wait a minute, this is not her."
But the lady, she also embraced me too,
and she was like, "Oh, my name is such and such."
And she was like, "Thank you so much for the hug.
I'm sorry I'm not the person that you're looking for,
but I was having a really bad day,
so thank you for the hug."
And at the end of it, I guess it was still a plus,
but I'm like, "Oh my gosh."
So next time I told myself, "I'm just going to wait
and make sure that it's the person
instead of just going and just giving hugs out, I guess."
Hugging random strangers.
It turned out well though.
You really made somebody's day.
You probably wish the floor would open up
and swallow whole though.
Yes, it's like one of those moments
where you just wish you could just melt
right into the floor, like, "Oh my gosh."
Oh wow.
Aren't these always so much funnier though
when they happen to somebody else and not to you?
I'm like, part of me is going, "Ooh,"
and part of me is going,
"Oh, thank you, God, that wasn't me."
So I have one, and this happened,
I was dating someone at the time
and we were going to go out and do a few things,
but before we could run our errands,
he had a martial arts class that he was taking.
And so I was sitting in the waiting room
while he took his class, and I hear the voice,
and the voice is a thing that you might be familiar with
if you are visibly,
like your vision is not perfect and it's evident.
And the voice is this weird combination
of a little bit condescending and annoyance, right?
So, like, you're a problem to be solved.
So I hear the voice, and she's like,
"Are you planning on joining us today?"
"Well, no, I have some logistics to work out.
I really want to learn this martial art,
but I don't wanna take up too much attention
from the rest of the class.
So I just have a few things to get figured out
and I'm really hoping I can do this."
"Okay.
Now, young man, if you come in
and join your sister this time,
you had better not pull what she pulled last week."
She was talking to her kid.
And here I am responding to this conversation thinking like,
"Oh, well, she's talking to me."
And no, not so much. She was annoyed with her child.
Oh, the whole thing. Oh.
Oh.
But now with the advent of Bluetooth in people's ears,
we have lots of company.
That is true. -: That's true.
Because people don't know
that other people are on the phone
or whether they're talking to them.
That's so true.
Yeah, I guess everybody does that.
They respond to something
and think maybe that was meant for me,
but I can't really tell.
So it's not all about me, apparently.
Lisa, do you have one where you were involved
in a conversation of any kind?
Long ago and far away when dinosaurs roamed
the Earth
and there were actual things called bookstores,
and you could go in, you could buy paperback books,
and they maybe had a tiny little shelf
where you had a small collection of audios too.
It was pretty cool.
But I went in to buy a gift,
and I went in with my guide dog,
who the dog at the time was a large black lab.
And I was waiting in line.
And these teenagers off to my left
were having a conversation.
And one of them said to the other, "Good dog or bad dog?"
And I'm thinking, "That's rude. That's just rude."
And I thought, "But I'm gonna be a decent human being
and I'm going to educate."
And at the same time I'm thinking,
"Okay, did my dog just sniff them
or did he grab an entire soft pretzel
out of someone's hand?
You know, why are they saying this?"
And he had been kind of distracted that day.
And so I looked at them and I said,
"Oh no, good dog, bad day."
And they looked at me and burst out laughing.
And then I was really confused.
Here they were looking at a display of books.
If you are familiar with the "Harry Potter" series,
that's what they were looking at.
Oh, it has like that three-headed dog.
Yes, one is Fluffy, the three-headed dog who
is bad,
but the other is Sirius Black
who took the form of a large black dog.
And they looked and they went,
"Oh no, Sirius Black, he's good.
You just don't know it right away."
And I'm like, "Yeah, that's about how it is with him."
So that was my little misperception.
Again, back to Ricky's thing,
I guess it's not all about me or, in this case, my dog.
Oh, you just never know what is going to happen
when you venture forth from your house
and you're out and about.
Every errand is an adventure, right, Doug?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And I have a feeling
more than just me has experienced this one.
And so my previous job,
I was a teacher of the visually impaired,
and I traveled from school to school
and saw the different kids all around the county.
Well, the school system there provided a driver for me.
And so I was waiting for the driver.
I just finished working with a first grader.
So I was waiting for a driver
outside of the elementary school there.
And I couldn't see the people inside the cars.
Now, this was when my vision
was up a little better than it is,
and I didn't use a cane yet, an identifier cane.
So I'm waiting for this dark SUV to show up
and pulls up right in front of me like it always does.
And I quickly jump in the car and I buckle my seatbelt.
And this female voice that I do not recognize says,
"Eh, can I help you?"
And I just froze. And I was just shocked.
And it's a lot like the elevator.
All I could say is, "I'm sorry."
And I just didn't say anything.
I just jumped out of the car, you know?
And the SUV, it just drove away.
And looking back, I'm like, "She was there for a reason
and apparently, I creeped her out so much
she just left, right?"
But she drove away and it was horrible.
But it does get worse
because my driver was right behind this vehicle.
Oh no.
And she saw everything.
And so she pulls up and she is just laughing out loud.
She is cracking up.
And she said, "You got in the wrong car.
You got in the wrong car."
Of course, it was all over the school system the next day.
And so yeah, it took a long time to live that one down.
But hey, one good thing happened.
I started using identifier cane after that happened.
So I guess some good did come after that,
right, or out of it.
Well, there you go, and again, somewhere,
somehow there's a woman telling this story to her family,
"This creepy man got in my car."
But I wanna tell you, yeah,
later on she did show back up at the elementary school
'cause I went back to the elementary school the next day
and they were like, "This woman came in
and did you get in the car with this woman?"
You know, and so they told her to kind of filled her in
on who I was and what was going on.
So anyway, there's not a lady, I hope,
like the elevator lady, that is talking about me
on a podcast right now, I guess, so.
At least your driver laughed
and she didn't say the one word
that everyone with low vision dreads here.
Oh no, that's the worst.
Aw.
It's like, "No, make fun of me.
I'd rather that than your pity. Thank you."
Yeah, she was way beyond that.
Yeah, I didn't hear the end of it a long time.
I feel like we've talked about cars and
bookstores.
I feel like meals probably have the potential
for some real embarrassment/things
that we can chuckle about later.
Tiffany, do you have a story about a meal?
I sure do.
So one day, and this was in high school as well,
so we're in the cafeteria line.
I get fries and it's Taco Tuesday or something like that.
And so I get fries, I'm in the line,
and they have the taco sauce
and the ketchup bottles right next to each other.
They are labeled, but I wasn't able to see the labels
and the containers were similar
and I really couldn't tell.
So it's kind of like a eeny, meeny, miny, moe type of thing.
So I grab a container
and I'm pouring sauce all over my fries
and it ends up being the taco sauce.
So one of my friends walk up, she sees it, she's like,
"You like taco sauce on your fries?"
I'm like, "Yeah, don't you?"
And I was like, "Try it."
And she was like, she tried it,
she was like, "No, no, no thanks, no."
And I was just like, "Okay."
So in this moment I'm thinking, "What do you do now?"
So I'm just like, yeah, I'm not really feeling this myself,
so I'm just gonna go
and get something from the school store or whatever.
But yeah, that was a blooper for me for meals.
Gosh, I think I actually would like
to try taco sauce on fries.
I know some people have had mayo on fries
and that seems not good.
But yeah, I think I'd eat fries with taco sauce.
But it is so embarrassing when you think
that you have done what you intended
and it turns out maybe not so much.
So I had one where I used to work with a consulting firm
and we worked with businesses
to help them make their websites and apps more usable
and accessible for people with blindness
or low vision or other disabilities.
And so once I was on a week long travel
and we were consulting with like a Fortune 500 company,
and so the dress code is pure corporate,
you know, suit and heels and all that,
and, you know, you're not there to stand out per se.
It's kind of conservative. Everyone is dressed similarly.
So I'm there for a week, and after the training each day,
my colleague and I go back to the hotel.
So we're pretty much on a first name basis
with the hotel staff by now.
And everything is really friendly and great.
So I have a full day of presenting
to this group of Fortune 500 employees,
and they're learning a lot and all of that,
and get back to the hotel, and my colleague and I walk in,
and our friend at the hotel now says,
"Oh, hey, such and such.
And hey, Ricky, I love your outfit,
the burgundy and the green."
"Oh, thank you. Wait, what?"
I just had this moment
of that is very likely a horrible combination.
And regardless, it was not at all
what I had intended to wear.
So all day I've been confidently
making this fashion statement
and being all edgy or whatever, and I had no idea.
So I was like-
Your own fashion trend. You're a trend setter.
There you go. Yes, absolutely.
At least you found out at the end of the day.
If I found out at the beginning of the day,
I would feel like I needed to stand up
in front of the group and- Explain.
apologize for my insanity or something, yeah.
And I'll still never understand
why the person at the hotel complimented me.
Maybe like, "You're really out on a limb. That's brave."
That is a brave look.
May have been what every the Fortune 500 company
was saying too, right?
"How brave she's and how confident."
Yes. And maybe that's it.
Maybe if we just approach things with enough confidence,
then whatever we do is not so embarrassing after all.
Absolutely, I agree. And I'm right there with
you.
I wore a navy blue heel and a black one.
They're like the same shoe but different colors.
I had those on the same day all day long.
And you can have all the marking and
labeling systems.
There's no fix for I'm in a frantic hurry.
Yeah, and I walked around for most of the day
with a leather Birkenstock on
and a plastic one on the leather foot, you know,
and I thought they were the same shoes, so.
Well, it's like we said earlier,
it's not always just us that this happens to though.
I've heard so many stories
of people accidentally leaving their houses
with their house slippers still on and going to work
and only realizing it once they got there,
"Oh, I'm still wearing my slippers."
So, you know, as much as we think that it's all about,
"If I didn't have low vision, if I weren't blind,
then everything else would be perfect
and I wouldn't make these kinds of things," no, not at all.
I really think this is just part of the human condition.
And if you're new to sight loss,
you may have something like this happen,
and you may have a good cry,
and you may invite some of your nearest
and dearest friends to a little pity party.
But you know what?
I think time really makes the best seasoning.
And after too long, you'll be able to pull it out
and say, "Oh, do you remember
that really silly thing I did?
I thought I was gonna die of embarrassment,
but I'm still here to tell the tale."
And is that how you get through
those moments yourself now, Lisa?
Absolutely.
It's the what doesn't kill us makes us stronger,
or, you know, I go confidently
in the wrong direction kind of philosophy.
And what about you, Tiffany?
What do you tell yourself
just to kind of get past some of those moments
so that you don't dwell on it,
instead you're able to smile about it?
Yeah, I kind of just chuckle in the moment to
myself
and I'm just like, "Girl, keep swimming. You got this."
Like, just keep swimming.
Just keep swimming. Yeah.
What about you, Doug?
Oh, that's great.
Well, I think you're so right, Ricky, we all make mistakes,
and, you know, whether we have a visual impairment or not.
And, you know, I think it really helps
to have that sense of humor and be able to keep that.
I mean, I grew up in a family
that loved to laugh and to joke around.
So for me it's just keeping things lighthearted
and just living in the moment.
Well, I knew this was going to be fun,
and it certainly was.
I think it helps a lot to understand
that, again, it's not just you
that these things will happen to.
And if you can smile about it
and look back on it with a chuckle, it's so much better
than sort of wallowing in that embarrassment
and thinking, "Oh, everyone is thinking this or that
or the other thing about me."
I feel like smiling really goes a long way.
So I have had such fun with all of you.
Thank you for sharing your stories with each other
and of course with everyone listening.
Yeah, well, thanks for having us, Ricky.
It's been fun.
Yes, thank you.
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(light music)