So, this blind guy walks into a revolving door...
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- Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:59:37 -0400
The Herald, Scotland (UK)
Friday, October 19, 2007
So, this blind guy walks into a revolving door...
By IAN HAMILTON
My first challenge when staying at an unfamiliar hotel is, believe it or not,
finding my way into the building. If the hotel has a revolving door my guide
dog, Moss, will see it as a hazard and refuse to move. I'm standing there on
the pavement wondering why he's not responding to my commands.
It is only when a passer-by mutters something about a revolving door that I
understand why the dog won't budge. I now start to coax and eventually bribe
him to step into the gap while the door is slowly spinning. Not easy for a dog
to co-ordinate such a move. In the past, I've resorted to picking the dog up
and carrying him in. While listening carefully for the moving swish of the
revolving door, I grab hold of the dog, and step cautiously into the gap.
Timing is crucial. So is a small dog. Unfortunately, I've got a five-stone
labrador. The door picks us up like a hurricane and flicks us into reception.
Paws, luggage, bits of fur and I land in an undignified heap - what an
entrance. Anyway, I'm in the first challenge in this game has now been
completed successfully.
The second challenge awaits; I'm in the reception area, now to locate the desk.
You would think after making an impressive entrance like that, someone would
notice. But no. Listening carefully, I strain my ears for a clue. Perhaps
someone will say: "Can I help you?" Nope. Maybe a doorman will come over and
point me in the correct direction. No! Eventually a phone rings in the
distance. "Hello, Elvira speaking." Aha! Moss and I make our way towards the
voice.
Elvira asks me for the registration number of my car. I'm standing there with
my guide dog - I doubt that she has even glanced in my direction. A porter
takes me along endless corridors, two sets of lifts, and a rope swing,
eventually ending up at my room.
The dog thinks the room is a park. I hope the carpet isn't green
The second challenge has been completed now the third challenge. Getting into
the room and finding my way about.
The porter opens the door with the plastic card, quickly points around the room
and tries to leave. I force him to stay and explain every detail and layout of
the room, which includes how to open the door. I never know which way the card
should go in. I've spent many an hour in hotel corridors trying every possible
combination. Now I just get the receptionist to punch a small hole in one of
the corners.
This way, I know how the card should be inserted.
I find that I have been given the disabled room. I can understand why they do
this. However, the facilities a blind person needs aren't the same as someone
who is a wheelchair-user. The room is huge and it takes me literally 10 minutes
to find the bed and a chair and another 10 to find the window. I hear the dog
quietly snuffling about. He thinks it's a park. I hope it doesn't have a green
carpet or we could have a spillage.
That reminds me: it's now time for my fourth challenge: where is the bathroom?
After wandering around the bedroom and whistling loudly I come across the sort
of echo only ever heard in a cathedral or a bathroom. It was designed as a wet
room, which is great, but it is so large it takes me a further 15 minutes
before I collide with the toilet.
Now, unbeknown to me, there was a button at waist height just outside the
bathroom door. It was to allow wheelchair users to open the front door from a
distance.
I strip off in the main room and feel my way back to the bathroom. I have a
great shower, but as I come out again I walk into that button, which activates
the front door little did I know, that as I dried myself, the extra-wide front
door had very smoothly and silently opened, exposing my naked self to everyone
going past. It was only some days later when a colleague was pressing the
button, out of curiosity, that I discovered what had been happening.
My penultimate challenge is to close the curtains, so that I don't expose
myself to the whole city, as well as everyone in the hotel.
The room has electric-powered curtains, which are operated from the side of the
bed. Very luxurious and practical for a wheelchair-user.
However, the only way I can tell if the curtains are open or closed is to get
up, make my way across the room and physically feel for myself. If the curtains
were open, it would take another five minutes to find my bed again and activate
the button and, of course, being completely paranoid now, I was never convinced
that they worked, so I would have to get up and check for a second time.
At last, my sixth and final challenge: sleep.
I collapse into bed, exhausted, with the day's challenges whizzing round my
head. I have to find a way of calming the mind to get to sleep Oh, no! I've got
to find my way down to breakfast in the morning. I'd better get up now
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featuresopinon/display.var.1771512.0.0.php
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