Blind leading the Blind

Ever do something that afterwards you want to smack your head in (a) embarassment or (b) horror that you actually did what you did? I tend to do this often; I fly by the seat of my pants in most of my life experiences, and usually suffer the embarassing consequences. And then to make matters worse, I normally go and tell people what happened. (I KNOW I KNOW- WHY would I do such a thing?)

So yesterday Mark was at the home office, preparing some Life Builders materials with Sam. We decided to grab some lunch out, and proceeded to hit the local Chinese Buffet. The food was okay (I'd much prefer Mexican, but beggers can't be choosers, eh?) and certainly didn't help my 'eat healthy life attitude.. or until I get married' mantra I've been following for the past couple months, but the conversation was nice, as was the company. During lunch, I was snapping pictures with my phone so I could document what we were doing. I know most of the team thinks it's unneccessary the amount of pictures I take during 'just' downtime, but to me, I like chronicling things. I'm a packrat, a picture junkie, and candids are my favorite. :)

Anyway, during this picture-taking adventure, I tried to snap one of Mark eating. Mark had just finished describing the 'way to eat @ buffets' (eat the most expensive items, skip the carbs- cheap to make- all in all, the way to GET YOUR MONIES WORTH AT BUFFETS. If I didn't know better, Mark would be PA Dutch to me...) and I was zooming in on Mark's face. As I snapped the picture, all of a sudden MARK'S EYE is right at the camera. I had forgotten, but the flash on my Blackberry is like a thousand Christmas lights going off. AT ONCE. As Mark screamed in pain (and Colleen, Sam, and I doubled over with laughter) I sputteringly described the Blackberry's powerful flash. Mark begin to describe himself as blind.. ushering in a plethora of jokes and stories.

I then proceeded to tell mine. (Which, btw, I can't believe I didn't mention on here. Probably because it's SO DANG EMBARASSING). The other day @ school, I was walking to my Spanish class--most likely texting and walking, totally dangerous, don't let anyone fool you!--and I noticed a female student walking with a cane, who appeared to be blind. I moved out of her way, as she looked like she was trying to figure out where she was going, and was extremely surprised when she put her cane IN FRONT of my feet and proceeded to ask me where the Early Learning Center was. For the life of me, I HAD NO IDEA what she was talking about, because as I commute to school I try to learn only the absolute tiniest about the campus- where I need to go for class, books, computers, and coffee, thankyouverymuch. :)

I apologized as I told her that, and turned to walk away, when she grabbed my arm and asked me if I could walk her towards the library. AND THEN IT HAPPENED. I then took hold of this woman's hand, turned her to her left, and said "Oh, it's right here- if you LOOK about fifty feet in front of you, you'll see it." YEP THAT'S RIGHT- I told a BLIND PERSON to LOOK. The woman started laughing at me as I began to profusely start apologizing, and she reassured me that it was fine. I told her that while I had NO idea where she wanted to go, we could walk togetherto find it.

Eventually, we found the building (it was right next to my classroom's building, coincidentally), and I walked this woman to the door. NOT BEFORE I forgot to mention that WATCH OUT, new blind friend, there's a giant grate on the pavement that you could trip over! (I need to take a class about disabilities, I KNOW I KNOW). It was so mortifying to realize I could be unknowing about a person who has a disability. Definitely speaks to how much I have to learn about culture/people that are not like me.

So tell me: what was your most recent embarassing moment?