Amuse-douche

            As “foodie” culture becomes more ubiquitous, restaurant menus are getting more elaborate, which often means the print on them is stylized and small.  Restaurants themselves are also getting darker, which feels counter-intuitive.  You think they’d want good lighting since every idiot in America takes pictures of their food now.  But, no. There’s even a restaurant in San Francisco called Opaque where you literally eat in the dark.  The absence of vision is meant to enhance the flavor of the food.  While I’ve never dined at Opaque, thanks to small menu print, dim ambient lighting and my being legally blind, I’ve been to plenty of restaurants where I was in the dark about what I ordered.  

            Fancy restaurants were probably starting to get darker before the late 90s, but my family couldn’t afford to eat in them, so I had no idea. Growing up, we ate out at chain dining spots like Chili’s or Bertucci’s, places with bright overhead table lights and menus written in 12-point font.  Legal Seafood at the rich people mall was the closest we got to a white linen restaurant.  Even there, the lighting was low and the typeface on the menus was very, very small. I remember having to hold a candle up to the menu to see the fine print. One time, years later when my family could afford to eat a steakhouse called Charlie Palmer, which looks out on the Capitol Building in Washington DC, my sister, who also has albinism, used the candle technique I pioneered to see the small-print of her menu and she set it on fire.  Fortunately, the waiter had already brought us our waters. As we started going to nicer restaurants, the smallness of the menu print became a more common problem and there weren’t always candles, which I understood after my sister’s menu went up in flames. When there weren’t candles and no amount of my squinting could make sense of the blurry, miniscule print in front of me, I could only order from the Specials menu because the waiter had said those dishes out loud. I shudder to think how many truly amazing meals I've missed out on because I couldn't see the full menu. Such a tragedy.    

            As I gained more independence and started living on my own, I ate out at fast food restaurants more often.  Reading the menus at these places was even more challenging than white linen restaurants.  At most fast food joints or take-out places like the ones in the cities where I went to college and grad school, the menu is up on the wall.  Though the typeface on these menus is (I'm told) larger, I still can't see the print.  Candles and squinting were no help and I didn’t want to ask to go behind the counter so I could see the menu up close. It wasn't so bad when I would eat with a friend because I could ask him or her to read me the menu. But when a friend wasn't around and I didn't want to ask anybody (for reasons which will become clear), I again was limited to whatever promotion the restaurant was running. Though these places didn’t have waiters to read me the Specials, the ads on the door for the Spicy Sriracha Grilled Chicken or the Spicy Sriracha Italian BMT for $5 or the Spicy Sriracha Ice Cream Sundae were usually big enough and bright enough to be seen from two blocks away, so I never went hungry.  Some of these restaurants also did take-out. That usually meant they had a printed menu I could hold up close, so I didn’t have to rely on my exceptionally poor distance vision. When there wasn’t a special on the door, a friend with me, or a menu I could read, I had to ask a stranger for help. This was always my least favorite option. Maybe you don't think it would be a problem to ask a person for help seeing something, but I’m here to tell you, it’s a nightmare.

            Admittedly, some of why it’s ‘a nightmare’ is my own psychology. I don’t like to ask for help because I don’t often need it and there are times in my history when I needed it and help wasn’t given.  As a product of this disappointment and my own ego, I pride myself on being (mostly) self-reliant.  Honestly, I don’t have much practice asking for assistance so I feel awkward doing it.  I’m not comfortable admitting weakness or that I need other people. I do not like to feel vulnerable or less than. I also have been let down by many people who were supposed to take care of me, so I don’t trust them all that much. In No Exit, Sartre wrote “hell is other people” and I often agree.  Maybe you think this mild misanthropy is ugly or unwarranted, but this opinion did not form in a vacuum.  In fact, it formed in fast food restaurants asking jackasses for help.  

            Imagine for a moment you see a person on crutches struggling to make it down the street. Her face grimaces as she propels herself forward, herky-jerky, beads of sweat streaking her forehead. Imagine walking up to this person who is obviously struggling to navigate the world with a handicap and saying, “Guess it's time to get a wheelchair, huh?”  It's such a selfish, rude, hurtful and ridiculous thing to say, you probably can't even imagine yourself, or anyone else, behaving in such a head-up-their-own-ass manner.  No one would have the audacity to tell a person with a disability how to better cope with that disability, besides maybe a doctor specializing in that particular condition or another person affected by the same disability, right?   Right???   That’s gotta be right, right? 

Now imagine you're at a Potbelly sandwich shop and a super handsome albino dude (me) turns to you and says, “Hi. I can't see the menu, do you mind telling me what vegan sandwiches they have?”  Rather than answering this simple, straightforward question, imagine you instead say to this person, “Guess it's time for a new prescription.” Or, maybe you won't eat Potbelly because it's lunchtime and they have those annoying performers singing folk versions of 90s grunge songs and you're smarter than to try to eat with that noise. Totally get it, couldn’t agree more. So, imagine you're at a Chinese buffet place, and that same handsome-as-fuck albino dude (again, me) is squinting at the small print on their takeout menu, holding it an inch from his face, eyes narrowed, weak with hunger, straining to barely make out the fading, miniscule typeface. Imagine saying to this gorgeous squinting struggler, “You gotta get some new glasses, buddy.”  It would be insane, right?  To tell a person with a disability you don’t have how to better cope with their disability would be an insane, self-centered thing for a person to do, whether the disabled person is in a wheelchair, using hearing aids or wearing glasses.  Still, people say things like this to me every six weeks or so.  The setting isn’t always restaurants, but the dialogue’s always the same:

“Need to get those eyes checked.”

“Time for new specs.”

“When was your last eye appointment?”

“Damn, you blind?” 

"Someone needs a new eye doctor."

“Surprised glasses that thick don’t work better.” 

“Quick, how many fingers?” It’s ALWAYS two, by the way.  I find it ironic people flash the peace sign after committing what I consider to be an act of war against me. 

Truthfully, this unsolicited medical advice and commentary about my disability from people who are far too stupid to be doctors is the hardest aspect about being an adult with albinism now that I’m married.  I believe I’m good enough, I believe I’m complete, but I’m often faced with the reality these sentiments are untrue.  Objectively speaking, I am genetically flawed. The way I see the world is literally inaccurate and limited. In the jungle, I’d be tiger food. I suppose there’s some beauty to being aware of this reality, some strength in the self-awareness that comes from knowing my limitations and weaknesses.  But that doesn’t do much for me since this reality is often expressed by imbeciles, who belittle me simply because their eyes can focus light properly and mine cannot. Never mind all the other ways I’m exceptional, I have albinism, so in their perfect eyes, they see me as inferior. 

It’s the kind of thing I thought I’d outgrow.  It gets better, right?  But stares on the school bus became stares on the city bus.  Whispers in the library became whispers at Starbucks.  Comments in the lunch line of the cafeteria became comments in the lunch line at Chipotle.  They don't happen as often as they used to, which only makes it more jarring when the comments come.  Regardless of my career success, financial stability, spiritual maturation and growing family, every few weeks I’m reminded that I’m not good enough and the message of my worthlessness is delivered by fools.  It’s probably more tragic than the meals I missed not seeing the menu, but I try not to think about it.  

Like my search for dog poo, my denial is helped by my iPhone. If I'm going to a fast food or takeout place, I can look up the menu on the internet while I wait in line for my tray of Spicy Sriracha slop. If the place isn't online, I can take a picture of the menu on the wall then use the zoom feature to magnify the photo so I can read my options in crystal HD clarity. If the restaurant is dark, I turn on the flashlight. I don’t need your eyes anymore; I have my iPhone.  And Siri never tells me it's time to get new glasses, except when she reminds me about optometry appointments, which I guess is okay.   

Further Reading: The Battle of Los Angeles: Part One