I do not see as well as most of the population. I am extremely light sensitive which has lead me to walk in to more than a few stationary objects as I’m blinded by the sun. I say “Excuse me.” only to realize I apologized to a parking meter or a trash can. I also have no depth perception. Most of the time, I do a pretty good job of faking it, but every once in a while, I have a coping mechanism failure of epic proportions. This is the story of one those moments.

Recently husband and I were having lunch at a local restaurant, nothing fancy, just the breakfast/sandwich joint in the only strip mall in town. This strip mall is home to a hair salon, a candy store, a gift shop, a contract postal station and the pizza place (small town living people). After we placed our order, I headed down the sidewalk to the post office. I could see the candy story had an a-frame sign out and beyond it, a woman was striding towards me carrying a yellow mylar balloon with a smiley face on it I could only see the balloon, no face. Being my chipper self, I said “My aren’t you smiley today”. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized she was NOT in fact carrying the balloon, it was attached to the a-frame and the wind was blowing in such away that it blocked her face.

With an annoyed smile on her face. She said, “Don’t even get me started.” in a way that let me know she wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t annoyed with me either. As she entered the hair salon, I tried to explain, but my words were a jumbled mess and she was on a mission.

Oops!

Ah, life with low vision.