the writing on the wall

I respect handicapped people. Unfortunately, when I say that I respect handicapped people, it will automatically make you think that I don't and I'm trying to compensate by saying that I do, so I probably shouldn't have started out with that. There are simply several things in this world that I don't understand, and I try to receive more understanding by bearing my soul to the vast empty spaces of the Internet. The thing that has been troubling me lately, is braille.

I just don't get it. Now I am also not saying that I think braille is useless. I think it is super cool, but I will never understand how it is read. I guess my fingers just aren't that sensitive. I have a hard enough time knowing whether my index fingers are on the home keys on my keyboard, and they are the only ones with dots.

But I see braille everywhere! ....okay, I'll admit, that was a bit insensitive. I just don't get why braille is posted on pretty much everything. I realize that it definitely has to do with the ADA, but why? It seems to me like so much if it isn't actually helping.

A commonly known one is braille on the keys of drive up ATM machines. I don't understand. In order for these to be useful, steering wheels, gas pedals, and speedometers should also have braille. There should also be dots on the side mirrors that say, "Objects in mirror are closer than they would appear."

Another is elevators. Many elevator buttons will have braille listed for every button. By the time someone using the braille actually found the button he was looking for, he would have hit every button for every floor. There is nothing that tells which floor the elevator stopped on (in most cases). How would the person know when to get off?

One that I really don't understand is room plaques. You will see these for numbered rooms, men's and women's restrooms and emergency exits. For these to be useful, one who reads braille would need to walk down every hallway with their finger running against the wall at shoulder-to-eye level. Has anyone ever seen someone doing that? I never have. The person would also have to be walking against general walking traffic, because the walls on the left would be the only ones that were written forward. Were they to walk down the right side of the hall, the braille would be backward and may say something else entirely, maybe something offensive.

There are a good sum of blind people that have K9 friends that help them out, Seeing Eye Dogs. For this reason, I think it would be a good idea for braille plaques to be smothered with bacon. This would enable those with SEDs to get directly to the plaque without scraping their finger to the bone looking for the bathroom down an airport terminal.

I know that others will not share my views. This is simply my opinion. I apologize if I offended anybody, that was not my intent. Please do not come to my home and poke angry messages into my door.