i am horrible when interacting with people who have mental and physical deficiencies. this occurred to me the other day as i drove down the highway. the car in front of me advertised the logo to help those with mental retardation, and it was then that this thought came through my mind.
i do not know what to do when i meet someone with said disorders as the conversation becomes awkward. i am unsure on how to conduct a conversation if the person pretends to sew something that is invisible in my mind's eye.
be honest dear reader, have you ever waved at a blind person. you know the person is blind, as it is obvious when the person slams their stick to the ground and moves it to the left and to the right; knocking people out of the way, hitting young children and innocent passersby. your excuse for waving is something like, "well they are wearing glasses." then you question if they are blind to begin with. a conversation with a blind person would be awkward because i, like some, would slip up. i would ask certain unanswerable questions: "have you seen the new transformers movie?" then i would make this joke in my head thus stating that the only movies they like are in black and white.
have you ever physically said hello to a deaf person. during the small conversation you start moving your hands in all different ways, attempting to sign with them even though you cannot sign to begin with. you then change your voice, sounding like you have a mental deficiency. i now must close this note with a question: do you think Sarah Palin is more retarded than her retarded son?
This is timely, just last night I realized and confessed that I talk to deaf cats and DON'T CARE! I will continue to do so. Then again, I was talking to MS Word documents like they were cats too tonight so whatever.
ReplyDeleteI will admit that it can get weird if you don't have much experience communicating with D/deaf and blind folks. I'm sure blind people in particular are used to dealing with all sorts weird questions/assumptions from seeing people. Therefore I will continue to gesticulate at them out of habit and feel like an ass. However, I will not say cool things like, "IF YOU COULD SEE YOU WOULD BE RECEIVING NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION CUES RIGHT NOW. HOWEVER, YOU CAN'T, SO YOU'RE NOT."
I think Sarah Palin's son is going to come worse than if he just had the trisomy going on because his she and the dreck that erupts from her maw are going to be his NORM. If people of average intelligence don't have the critical thinking skills to notice she's crazy as a sack full of ferrets, he's screwed.