Humility

If you want to experience humility, walk through a major shopping centre with a walking stick and no obvious disfigurement or disability. People, particularly older people, will stare at you -- some covertly, some shamelessly. Small children will whisper hurriedly to their parents, who will tell them not to stare. Others don't look at you in a way that makes it quite obvious that they are not looking at you. It is very humbling. At first it used to bother me but now I see it as an amusing social experiment.

When I am out with Lala, she takes no prisoners in protecting me from inconsiderate members of the public. We were in the supermarket once, meandering along, when all of a sudden "TAKE A PICTURE! IT'LL LAST LONGER!" was bellowed at a terrified looking teenager who we'd just passed. Presumably he'd be staring.

That was humbling.

Last year Liz had a birthday party at Create A Bear, a shop where, funnily enough, bears are created by customers. It was a great day in which we all gave free reign to our inner-children who barely live below the surface at the best of times. Before we got started, I was standing near the entrance with Liz and some friends chatting. I had dark sun-glasses on because the shop was incredibly glarey, one hand on my stick and the other link through Liz's arm being festive.

A few minutes later, a shop assistant scurried over to us and said "Excuse me sir, I don't mean to be rude, but are you completely blind? Or can you see some things? I'm just wondering because we'll need to clear the shop a little bit." -- "Huh? What? Oh, no, it's just glarey in here" I said, somewhat bewildered, thinking that she was simply referring to glasses ("surely other customers wear sunnies in the shop" I thought). Then it dawned on me. I'm standing with sunnies on, arm linked around someone else, with a stick in my hand. I laughed. "Oh thank goodness! This is our first birthday party and we've got a district manager coming to check on us and I was out the back thinking 'Oh my God! Not a blind guy at our first party!'"

That was humbling.