[stylist] creative non-fiction prompt

Fri Jan 25 16:43:06 UTC 2013

Hi Chris,
I enjoyed this, and I didn't see the last line coming. I also related to
this far too much -- not just the way the digital revolution is complicating
life for blind folks, but the "painful earbuds" and the stress as we watch
the life-clocks wind down on our accessible  apliances, , as well. 

Thanks for sharing, and I'm sorry I haven't been able to participate in
these monthly challenges. I've started a few creative nonfiction pieces, but
really can't spare the time or creativity while I'm in this netherworld of
learning to use Word's advanced formatting options to get my novel ready for
publication. It's very much like untangling a knotty ball of yarn -- maybe I
should write about that, once I'm done. *grin*
Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Chris Kuell
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:47 PM
To: Stylist
Subject: [stylist] creative non-fiction prompt

Greetings. A couple of weeks ago, Eve asked me to post another writing
prompt. I decided to utilize the excellent lesson Bridgit posted about
creative non-fiction, and asked that folks write a creative non-fiction
piece related to blindness. I even offered a cash reward for anyone who got
their piece published. The response has been... underwhelming. Nonetheless,
I did the prompt, and here it is.

My Kingdom for a Button

By Chris Kuell

Last Christmas my wife and I decided to shuffle into the twenty-first
century. We've never been cutting-edge people, and have always been slow to
adopt new technology. We got our first CD player in 1997, about 15 years
after everybody else jumped on the band wagon. We moved to DVDs during the
final years of the Bush presidency, and still have some treasured VHS tapes
stored in a closet.  Now it was time to take the technology plunge yet again
and get one of those newer, big flat screen televisions. We went to Best
Buy, got an excellent education from one of their knowledgeable salespeople,
and then went to Costco to buy a 45 incher for half the price Best Buy was
selling it for.

After unhooking the old TV, cable box, stereo and speakers, my son and I
hauled the 200 pound entertainment center out to the curb. Next, I
manhandled the old, 150 pound television outside, taping a 'STILL WORKS'
sign to it. In the meantime, my daughter, who apparently can read Chinese
and has incredible engineering skills, built the new entertainment center
I'd bought online the week before. The new television, which couldn't have
weighed twenty-five pounds, was placed center stage, and after some rewiring
and finagling and cursing, we too could watch Ellen life size and in living
color. Not me, of course. I'd be happy with a two inch screen, as long as it
had a good sound system. But the big TV made my family happy, and my wife
was downright giddy to watch Iron Chef on the big screen. And as a famous
philosopher once said, "A happy wife means a happy life."

The trouble came last Saturday, as I settled into my recliner with a cold
beer and a jar of peanuts to watch the Patriots play the Texans. Although
there are at least seven different remotes controlling our house, I know
which one runs the cable box and which one works the television. Between the
two essential remotes, I counted 472 buttons. My wife had showed me which
was the power button, the channel up, channel down, volume up and volume
down. As for the rest, I have absolutely no clue what any of them do. I took
a sip of beer and turned on the cable box. Next, I turned on the TV. I knew
it was on, because I could hear static getting louder and softer when I
played with the volume buttons, but I didn't appear to be on any show, and
nothing happened when I pushed the channel up and down buttons. Hmmm. I
turned everything off and started the process again, with no luck. Albert
Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting a different result. So I repeated the
process a dozen or more times, all the while my blood pressure was rising.
Next, I ventured into the twilight zone, hammering at random various
combinations of the400 plus unknown buttons. Maybe a missile launched in
Poland, maybe my neighbor's microwave time changed, I can't say. But the
football game, or anything else for that matter, certainly wasn't playing on
my new television, that was for damn sure.

In the years since I went blind, I've developed a love-hate relationship
with buttons. Either there's too many, or there aren't any. At our state NFB
convention last year, the hotel elevator must have had over 30 buttons, all
in some random order. In the upper left corner, the Braille read 10. Below
that, 7, 4, 2, then a star, then a B, then a double dash. What the hell is a
double dash floor? And where was 6? Inevitably, before I found 6 another
passenger would come onto the elevator, see the blind guy on his knees
communing before the bank of buttons and ask slowly, as if talking to a
mentally challenged deaf child, "Can I help you?"

On the other end of the spectrum is the dreaded touch-screen. Where there
used to be nice, logical buttons, now there is a flat, smooth plane of
nothingness. It started with microwaves, where some ace employee at the
factory probably figured touch-screens looked "cooler" than all those pesky
bumps. Then, after running it by the engineers, they managed to produce them
cheaper as well. In time, all the blind friendly, easy to use microwaves
went the way of the dinosaurs. But, we blind people are a crafty bunch.
Someone (I can't find who) invented a product called the loc-dot, which is a
small sticker with a raised bump on it. These can be placed on a microwave
touch-screen where all the numbers are and, viola! Now it's blind friendly.

Yet, the plague of touch screens has continued to spread. First to
dishwashers, then to stoves, washing machines, dryers and even some
refrigerators. And loc-dots don't always help here, because there are
digital read-outs which can't be made tactile. To work my parent's stove,
you push a touch screen until a digital read-out lets a sighted person know
what temperature it's set to. Me-I have no friggin' clue. My brother's new
stainless steel refrigerator has a touch screen panel on the front, which
allows him to program the temp of the freezer, the vegetable bin, the beer
shelf. Very cool stuff, which I can't use. 

In January 2001, Apple launched a new product which is still changing the
world-the first iPod. Smaller than a deck of cards, the iPod allowed users
to compress and store their music digitally, so without CDs or drives or any
external hardware beyond painful ear buds, the user could store and listen
to tens of thousands of their favorite songs. It had one button-the on/off
switch. Everything else was controlled via a new, tiny, patented touch
screen in the shape of a circle. While the world fell in love with their
newer and smaller iPods, the blind were left listening to outdated Walkmans
or those select portable CD players that still had buttons for operation. 

In time, the folks at Apple hopped onto the accessibility bandwagon. Fourth
generation iPods, as well as iPhones, came with speech output and a new
technology called voice over, which does allow a blind person to use them. I
have several friends who, after a month or two of aggrevation and
frustration, now love their iPhones. 

As for me, I think I'll drag my feet for a while longer. I do listen to my
music on an iPod shuffle-the only apple product with raised buttons and no
screen. I still utilize an old cell phone I got in 2003. It has a numeric
keypad, an on/off button, a send button, and that's it. It's simple, it's
tactile, and I love it.

As for the football game, I ended up listening the old fashioned way, tuning
it in on the radio. When my son came home, he helped me figure out that
while the power button on one remote turned the cable box on, when I turned
the television on with the other remote, it turned the cable box off.
There's an old Irish expression that's perfectly appropriate here, but my
editors wouldn't appreciate me dropping the F bomb.

Now that mystery is solved, I can independently watch television again. But
what will happen when remotes someday become buttonless, or people control
their technology completely via their touch screen phones? Our kitchen
stove, an iron behemoth still controlled with knobs, has to be 70 years old.
Rust has chewed it's way through one corner, and I can only deflect my
wife's demands for a new one for so long. Same goes for our push-button
dishwasher. Last week it made a horrible sparking sound, then smelled like
burnt rubber bands while it chugged and churned. When old Bessie finally
kicks the bucket, will I have to resort to washing dishes by hand?

 I have little doubt that my pleas for a simple, button adorned world are
useless. Progress, as somebody famous once said, marches on. I am comforted,
at least a little, to know there's one button that will never leave me. The
first button we all experienced as babies. My treasured belly button. 

_______________________________________________
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