What I've Been Reading Instead of Cleaning My House

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Blind Leading the Blind

I just heard that the blind lady in our neighborhood is out of town getting a new seeing-eye-dog.

Hallelujah!!!

It's about time. She has the worst seeing-eye-dog ever! I'm serious, you cannot believe how horrible this dog is.

He's constantly taking her across the street when the light is red and he actually WAITS for a car to approach before he leads her out into traffic. It's ridiculous.

At church, she'll be walking down a crowded hallway and telling the small children to please ignore her dog (always good etiquette when being approached by a working-dog). What she doesn't realize is that her stupid dog is sitting there eating cookies out of a frightened toddler's hand while she's saying this!

Many times I've had to stop the car and lead her back home because that dog has gotten her completely lost and she no longer knows which way is which. She has my friend on speed-dial because she's gotten lost so many times (and miraculously my friend can find her when all she can do is feel a name on a mailbox for her location).

One time in Stake Conference (a huge church meeting), I was asked to say the closing prayer (always a stressful occasion for me because I have a fear of suddenly contracting Tourette's Syndrome and swearing like a sailor or yelling "coffee pot*" -- which may be even worse than swearing -- during the prayer). I sat on the front row so that there would be less chance of my tripping on the way up to the podium.

The blind lady and her dumb dog sat right next to me. No problem at first, the dog was very quietly sitting under the pew. But as the meeting progressed, that dog would slowly creep farther and farther out from under the bench and he was pushing on my legs, causing them to go higher and higher.

What do I do? What is the protocol when it comes to telling someone that her inept helper-dog has become an unwelcome ottoman? So now my legs are almost horizontal coming out of the pew. Occasionally the dog would jump up and my legs would go flying up in the air -- much to the amusement of the teenage boy sitting next to me. Now, this is a huge dog. No matter how much I moved, the dog was always under me. By the end of this long meeting, my legs were completely asleep! Now how was I going to go up there and say the prayer?

By the time the meeting was over, I said a prayer BEFORE my prayer that I could make it up there on my wobbly, numb legs. I actually made it to the stand and said the shortest prayer ever and hurried back down.

Strangely enough, I got many compliments on that quick prayer. I think everyone was happy to get out of there -- crazy guide-dog under their pew or not.

*This fear stems from an episode of "Oprah" on Tourette's Syndrome where the guest would always yell out "coffee pot!"

12 comments:

Shana said...

I don't understand what hilarious piece of DNA you have that makes it so everything comes out funny. I was laughing through this. Even though I'm glad the blind lady is getting a dog that will be helpful to her, I kinda love the dog in this entry.

Anonymous said...

i agree that your entries are so well put!

Nigel said...

Once, I was taking the trash out and our neighbor was standing there with her infamous guide dog. I guess she heard me approaching, because she says,"Excuse me, can you help me? I have no idea where my dog has taken me. I think we're by a dumpster, aren't we?" This dog takes her into traffic, takes her the wrong direction, and takes her to smelly places. I guess we should be glad we don't live by a saw mill or a volcano.

Jillybean said...

Maybe the dog just didn't like her, and was doing this all on purpose.

I was once the concluding speaker in Sacrament meeting, and the previous speaker went VERY long, so by the time I got up to speak, it was almost time for church to be over. I cut my talk down from the 12 minutes I had prepared, to just under 4 minutes.
I got tons of compliments on my talk;0)

Anonymous said...

As if your post didn't already have me rolling on the floor, Nigel's comment did me in.

"I guess we should be glad we don't live by a saw mill or a volcano."

Funny stuff.

Putz said...

my llitttle girl becky has a hearing dog and he does just fine excepts he plays sometime when he should be working(just like humans) but just lately she has always picked up his poop, but just lately she has been yelled at before she can explain what she intends to do...she lives in a city syracuse, not new york

Elizabeth-W said...

I am laughing out loud at the Tourette's comment. The mental image is more than I can bear.
"COFFEE POT"!!!!
inthenameof....amen

Elizabeth-W said...

It could always be worse. My husband's aunt goes through guide dogs like shoes. She wears them out. She is very high strung and chatty chatty. She worked them until they just frittzed out.
Perhaps this poor soul ended up with Aunt M's prior dogs.

SuziQ said...

Lois, ONLY YOU! Seriously. You're like a weird, funny stuff magnet!

rabidrunner said...

Being a reformed pot-of-coffee-a-day drinker, "coffee pot" would be my syndrome phrase of choice. For a minute (until I found the notation) I thought you too were a reformed pot-of-coffee drinker and that we might be related.

You can imagine the disappointment.

Lois said...

SHANA -- you must love him because you're both secretly evil.

SHILLIG4FAM -- thanks! I'm always unsure about my writing style because my college professors HATED it.

NIGEL -- you crack me up.

JILL -- I'm all for brevity.

CW -- yes, he's hilarious.

PUTZ -- come on, people, give a girl some time to pick up the poo!

EW -- oh my goodness, I had no idea that you could wear out a dog!

SUZIQ -- you mean this kind of stuff doesn't happen to you?

RABID -- never could understand the whole coffee fascination. Smells like burnt toast to me. Don't do tea or hot apple cider, either. I think they're all nasty.

The MacMizzles said...

COFFEE POT! I am going to try that the next time I am in an awkward quiet place.

Seriously, that is the funniest thing I have heard this week.