Because I blame my vision loss for ruining my life (I was going to put LOL here but the fact is I’m not kidding), I tend to hold it responsible when anything goes wrong. Even if it’s not the cause.
Recently my friend was picking me up after an appointment. I knew she would arrive shortly and decided to wait outside since it was a beautiful day. My girl pulled up to the curb, and I reached for the door handle and pulled. The door was locked. I looked in the tinted passenger window at her, and saw she was putting the car in park so that the door would unlock. Before I could try opening the door again, the passenger door window rolled down and a woman’s voice said, “Can I help you?”. It was not my friend.
I quickly explained that I am visually impaired and that I thought she was my friend. We both laughed and, thankfully, my real ride arrived as our giggling was winding down. As I opened the door to my friend’s car, I told her what had happened. Once seated and the car door closed, I burst into tears. “(Expletive) vision”, I managed to choke out as my sister-from-another-mother hugged me.
Fast forward to a few weeks later. I was shopping with my mother-in-law, and she led me to her car in the store parking lot. As she unlocked the car, well, it didn’t unlock. Wrong car. I then told her about my recent case-of-mistaken-auto-identity incident and she then reminded me of a family lore:
My father-in-law and uncle-in-law were golfing and Dad headed out to his truck ahead of Uncle Dave. They had driven together and Uncle Dave came out to the parking lot and got into the truck. He put his seatbelt on, looked at Dad. and said, “You’re not Ken”. Uncle Dave had gotten into the wrong truck.
This story made me laugh, as it always has. My vision may be compromised, but my sense of humor hasn’t. This story also made me realize that not all the snafus in my life are sight-related. After all, Uncle Dave’s got 20/20.
