Blind Bloopers; The chair is gone or has it?
In this second article for VI talk, Mujtaba reflects on an annoying action by someone in a canteen who thought he could take a chair away from him without asking; simply because he could see him do it. It gives the message that some people do tend to act on assumptions about visual impairment rather than act on reality.
By Mujtaba Merchant
My friend and I, just to be gramatically correct, often try exploring the alien food in our campus cafeteria. I say alien food because only aliens could
digest that kind of oil, spices, baking soda etc. OK, I admit I'm exaggerating, the food ain't that bad just like I ain't that bad at my job.
The protocol we follow is that first we check out the menu and decide on our poison. Then my friend will get me seated at a table where I need to guard one chair for him so that it’s available on return whilst he fetches the food.
As described above, on this day, I was guarding a chair for him at a table in the canteen. In saving his space, I put my leg around the leg of the chair to ensure that it didn't disappear from my sight. Time went by, so I checked my whats app messages and Facebook posts. Trying to hear through the cafeteria crowd is really difficult I tell you, so after some time, I gave up checking my phone.
Suddenly there is a jerk at my leg that was holding the chair. I get a bit startled but understand what is going on, I hear my friend talking to this stranger and I hear a sorry at the end of the conversation. After things were settled I asked my friend what happened? He tells me that some charlie was trying to take the chair away. I told him that I understood that but what were you guys talking about? Here is the funny part of the conversation that I can imagine happened in real time:
Charlie tried to take the chair, I get startled, my friend returns to the table at the same time the attempt of stealing the chair was made and tells Charlie:
“You can’t just take the chair like that without asking the person sitting on the table”
The funnier part: Charlie replies “He can’t see so I took the chair thinking he is not expecting anyone” At this, my friend gives it to him “I understand he can’t see but that doesn’t give you any reason to steal the chair from the table he is sitting on without his consent; besides you could have asked him if you could take the chair, he’s blind not deaf!” Charlie embarrassed replies “Sorry”.