[nfb-talk] Another good thing about being blind

[John G. Heim]

Admittedly, this one is kind of minor but another good thing about being 
blind is that it keeps you from making a mistake when talking about stairs. 
I've noticed that whenever sighted people have to walk up a lot of stairs, 
they almost always over state the number of floors by one. So if they work 
on the fifth floor, they might say, "The elevator was out so I had to walk 
up five floors." But they really had to walk up four floors. If you start on 
the first floor and walk up 5 floors you'd be on the sixth floor.

I doubt that blind people make that mistake as much.

One time I dropped my cane through that crack between the floor of the 
elevator and the floor of the hallway outside the elevator. I work on the 
fifth floor but my building has 3 basement levels. So my cane fell that 
whole way -- seven floors -- and maintained its aerodynamic stability that 
whole time. I'll bet it was going pretty darn fast when it hit bottom.


I think about that every time I use the elevator because that crack is about 
2 inches wide. Really a safety hazard, IMO. What if someone with a peg leg 
gets on the elevator? They could fall through there.