A thought experiment. Imagine a perfectly normal person named Greg who lives in the fictional comic book city of Metropolis. Greg is walking down the street and Superman descends from on high, landing right in front of him.

“Citizen,” he says, “I wish to commend you on your bravery.”

“Superman!” Greg shouts in surprise, “What an honor! But surely it is you who should be commended for bravery. Whatever have I done? I am a mere dental insurance salesperson.”

“No, citizen,” Superman replies, “You are most certainly brave. Not because you purvey policies to insure the wellness of your fellow humans’ teeth and gums, but because you walk about the streets as though your frailty and devastating physical vulnerabilities do not bother you in the slightest.”

“Oh well goodness, thank you for your kind words, Su—Wait, sorry, what?” Greg says, suddenly confused.

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In today’s bonus episode:

- Rocking my little baby opponents to sleep

- The accidental angry upside down pin

- My daring, courageous victory over a kid who got an asthma attack and forfeited

- How to rid yourself of anxiety by quitting anything that makes you unc…

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https://soccerexplainedpod.com/

In today’s bonus episode, which is free for everyone:

- Tiny blurry baseball guys

- Little Billy, the only Mets fan in school

- The world violently spins exactly one half circle

- Big honkin’ hockey

Music by Andre Louis

The podcast art and other blog graphics are by Will Cheung

Yankees audio clip from Major League Baseball, originally broadcast on WFAN New York. Retrieved from

2014 world cup clip from FIFA, retrieved from:

My freelancing website:

https://syhoekstra.com/

If you could watch footage of my day-to-day life around the end of 2014, it would not be uncommon to see me standing alone in a room, looking apprehensive, gripping an iPhone 6 like I was trying to snap it in half, staring at a dark screen, shaking the device violently, and, every now and then, yelling in fright.

Also, if you could watch that footage, where did you get it? Delete it right now.

But since you’re being a creeper, I’ll explain my behavior. I was playing a mobile game that had just come out called Audio Defense: Zombie Arena. It was an audio game, a video game without the video part. I wore headphones and the game created the setting through sound. I stood in the center of a gladiatorial stadium and zombies came at me from every direction. As I tilted the phone left and right, the sounds they made in my headphones shifted. I had to get them dead center, and shoot. If I didn’t dispatch them quickly, they got closer and the sounds got louder. Eventually, when they got close enough, I heard my character’s heart pounding (that’s when the yelling usually happened). It was the game telling me the zombies were in range for hand-to-hand combat and I could shake my phone to hit them with a golf club, or frying pan, or banjo (all real options).

There were fast zombies I could get rid of with a couple shots. There were colossal zombies that moved slowly, but killing them took unloading everything I had. There were zombies that whispered until they were right next to me, and then they started shrieking. There was a freaky laughing clown zombie with a chainsaw that ran back and forth instead of coming straight at me, the truest of nightmares.

The company that made the game was called Somethin’ Else. It was the advent of modern mobile gaming, and they saw an opportunity to carve out a niche in the market. The explosion in smart phones meant well over a billion people had hardware in their pocket that could download and run games. Audio games were much cheaper to make than video games of a similar quality. With 3D soundscapes, Somethin’ Else created novel audio worlds, which for me amounted to virtual reality. They had some encouraging success, got some media attention, and their games’ voice casts included Sean Bean and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Since I grew up with some vision that I lost slowly over time, there was a period of many years where I could play video games relatively well. Obviously games with less action, like Pokémon or Final Fantasy, were easier. But I was reasonably good at the Marios and Zeldas too. I had great hand-eye coordination, just not-so-great eyes. My reflexes, like parents, did the best they could with what they had.

But years before 2014, I lost any ability to play video games. So the possibility of games blind people could play that everyone else might be interested in was exciting. A chance to participate once again in the culture of gaming, albeit one small corner of the culture. I might be able to recapture the comradery of friends around a school cafeteria table talking about a Donkey Kong boss battle (until a nearby girl laughed, reminding us we were losers).

My optimism on this subject was partially due to the moment in history. 2014 was right in the middle of a thrilling time for blind people and tech. We first got access to iPhones in 2009, and enough of us bought them over the next few years that assistive technology developers were going wild creating new apps. Handheld computers with built-in cameras and an internet connection presented endless opportunity. For instance, we could point our phones at a piece of paper and have the words read out loud with reasonable accuracy, a feat that previously required desktop equipment and expensive software. Or we could get remote assistance for all kinds of tasks from hundreds of thousands of sighted volunteers at any time with video calls. The news was easier to read than ever, and the most important online conversations took place on text-centric social media sites like Reddit and Twitter. Third party apps for both of those platforms allowed blind people to consume content and post in fully-accessible, feature-rich environments unimaginable just a few years earlier.

Much of this was thanks to Apple’s commitment to making their devices and software accessible to screen readers (the programs blind people use to interact with computers via synthesized speech or Braille), and encouraging developers to do the same.

Earlier in 2014, at Apple’s annual shareholder meeting, CEO Tim Cook made it clear that the company’s work in accessibility was based in principle, not profit. An activist shareholder from a conservative think tank led an unsuccessful revolt among Apple’s owners because, he alleged, the company was sometimes pursuing goals which conflicted with the goal of making as much money as humanly possible. The man was chasing a lifelong dream of physically transforming into a cartoon parody of a conservative person. Cook responded indignantly to Cartoon Man, asserting that Apple has morals and values quite apart from generating revenue, thank you very much. He invoked blind people as an example. “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” The blind community cheered (and chose not to speculate why the Alabama-born Cook decided in this moment to feign Britishness).

Given this mood, I thought, why not a big new mainstream category of audio games? Everything else in tech was becoming more inclusive. Maybe sighted people would have fun gaming from someone else’s perspective. Maybe they would even do it because inclusion itself is a worthy goal, like Cook said. Perhaps we were standing upon the precipice of a new era of accessibility. Perchance the world we had always dreamed of was being born, guided by the benevolent midwifery of Silicon Valley. Could it be? Were we facing the dawning of a thousand beautiful, utopian tomorrows?

Ha-ha, no.

Somethin’ Else put out four or five games before ceasing all development at the end of 2015. Sighted gamers just didn’t care that much about audio games. Certainly not enough to pay the salaries of Ned Stark and Dr. Strange.

At the end of the day, sighted people have a hard time interacting with a screen that doesn’t have anything pretty or shiny on it. I can’t say I blame them. It feels wrong. There are videos and podcasts, TV and radio. Screens are for watching and headphones are for listening. Audio games ask us to use a screen but only listen. That’s fine with me. I use everything to listen. There’s no distinction. Podcasts compete with TV shows for my attention. It’s all just an audio track from a phone in my pocket. Sighted people are not used to blurring those lines. Why would they be? It’s nice to look at things. I remember that. I should have foreseen their preference.

I also should have expected the subsequent behavior of big, for-profit tech firms, whose goals are a little closer to Cartoon Man’s than they might have you believe. Twitter and Reddit eviscerated all the third-party apps that blind people loved because they didn’t show the platforms’ ads. And then, of course, along came a conspiracy-theory-spouting space fascist who grew up with all the privilege and comfort apartheid money could buy. He took over Twitter and immediately fired the entire accessibility team to reduce costs. Twitter is a flaming garbage pit now. Not just because Musk flooded it with bots, Nazis, AI slop, and porn, but also because it’s far less useable with screen readers.

Moreover, someone eventually pointed out to me that Apple’s accessibility commitment was something less than pure of heart. In the early 2000’s, third-party software developers stopped making screen readers for Apple. There weren’t enough blind people using Macs at the time to justify the investment. But school systems and governments were increasingly requiring computers they purchased to be accessible. If Apple wanted to remain a bidder for those lucrative contracts, they had to make their own built-in screen reader and commit to non-discrimination.

So it was, after all, about the bloody ROI, innit?

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The world of mobile audio games eventually settled into a sustainable pattern of producing low-budget mini-games played almost exclusively by blind people. Nothing remotely intricate or mainstream. Some completely blind gamers also enjoy word puzzle games, or titles in the style of old-fashioned text adventures. Not a whole lot else. For my money, the most interesting progress has been in existing mainstream games that have features making things easier on low-vision players who still have some useable vision.

Ultimately, this is fine with me. I miss gaming. But I would spend far too much of my life on games if I had more access. I once got really into a text adventure called Zombie Exodus (What is it with me and zombies?). Then I got an iOS update that made Siri suggest apps based on what apps I usually used in certain locations. The next morning, a notification popped up: “You’re at work, open Zombie Exodus?” In some alternative universe, there is a sighted Sy at a Games Anonymous meeting talking about surrendering to a higher power.

The hard part here, far from unique to the world of gaming or tech, was my realization that discrimination is so often the default. And its causes are diverse. Sometimes, the innocent and perfectly understandable desire of individual sighted gamers to play video games means the market for creative, high-quality audio games will just never be there. Sometimes it’s the insatiable greed of gargantuan corporate monstrosities. Either way, it’s pretty tough to change, unless you get the chance to regulate government contracts, or something similarly powerful. That’s often the disability experience. The world is what it is. When you get the chance to have some novel fun and blast some virtual-reality zombies to bits, you take it. You enjoy it, while it lasts.

Is this a happy note to end on? Not really. But you don’t deserve a happy ending. I haven’t forgotten how you’ve been surveilling me via video 24/7 for over a decade. Shame on you!

- You’re a spy!

- Attack of the chainsaw clown zombies

- Alabama goes British

- Tech bro midwives

Become a paid subscriber at deepsy.net/subscribe, to get episodes plus the written stories a month earlier, and support what I’m doing here!

Or throw a tip in my tip jar!

The podcast art and other Substack graphics are by Will Cheung

Find me on:

- Substack

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- My freelancing website

- The devastating difference between left and right

- Volunteer sisters

- Serenity praying through the internet

- Daily garbage delivery

Submit questions to be answered on future bonus podcasts here: https://deepsy.net/survey/4746402

Today’s music is “Old School Menu Music” by Andre Louis

The podcast art and other blog graphics are by Will …

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We’ve all been there. You’re at a party trying to blow off steam when someone corners you and won’t shut up about their job, or their hobbies, or their children’s medical struggles. But you have prosthetic eyes, and they’re your tickets to freedom, baby! Here’s how to escape the most persistent talkers using those two godsends in your skull.

1. Give Them a Good Squelchy Poke

While the talker is droning on, reach up and grab both eyes with your pointer and thumb. Pull slightly to make a little room back there. Wait a second for some liquid to fill the space. Keep your face completely casual as you give those little guys a firm jab to make a noise like you’re squeezing out the last of two tiny ketchup bottles. About one in four talkers will gag and excuse themselves right then and there.

2. Yank Them out and Clean Them

Take two small plungers out of your pocket, stick them to the front of your eyes, and pop those suckers out. Start polishing them with a handkerchief. Act like nothing strange is happening and stare directly at the talker with your empty sockets.

3. Put Them in Your Mouth

Really rattle those guys around in there. Intermittently say “Yum” just loud enough for the talker to hear. Groan like you’re savoring them deeply. You’re in heaven right now. See if you can covertly slip a pretzel in there too so you sound like you’re crunching down hard on the glass.

4. Do a Spit Take

Wait for the talker to say something surprising, and launch those bad boys as hard as you can. Bonus points if you hit the talker’s face. A real pro can get them straight down the talker’s throat and make them choke. Conversation over! They can’t blab on about coaching underprivileged youth when you blast their esophagus with eyeballs!

5. Dive on the Floor

Yell “Oh no! My eyes!” Hurl yourself down, bowling over the talker, and frantically feel around on the ground. Cry, “You’ve made me lose my magnificent face marbles!”

6. Vow to Have the Talker’s Eyes as Vengeance

After searching in vain, stop, scowl, and slowly turn your eyeless visage back upon the talker. Make your solemn oath for all to hear. “You shall rue this day when I pluck those flesh sacks from your brain and impenetrable darkness consumes your mind for all eternity.”

Nobody makes it past the vow. They usually run home screaming. So then just go in the bathroom, stick googly eyes on a couple ping pong balls, reinsert, and get back out on the dance floor!

Hopefully somebody finds the real ones.

In today’s episode:

- A short humor piece, plus accessibility and snow

- Reverse Mark Twaining

- Snow makes coffee bad

- Eyeball blasters (eyeballs=ammo, not target)

Become a paid subscriber at deepsy.net/subscribe, to get episodes plus the written stories a month earlier, and support what I’m doing here!

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The podcast art and other Substack graphics are by Will Cheung

Find me on:

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- A gesture of pity from a second grader

- Cyclopes

- The shocking medical effects of makeup

- Unconventional horticulture

Submit questions you have for me to be answered on future bonus podcasts here: https://deepsy.net/survey/4746402

Today’s music is “Wake Up, You’ve Got Work to Do” by Andre Louis

The podcast art and other blog graphics a…

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Alright, alright, circle up, American Sky Life Insurance and Casualty Corporation employee team building retreaters! Welcome back, everyone! How was walking around with those blindfolds on? Were our blind volunteers good guides? Well, they’ve had a little experience, ha-ha. We kid around here. Disability is not something to be afraid of. You can have fun with it.

Now we’re gonna move on to part two of the exercise. That’s right! It’s not over yet. This is always my favorite part of the morning! We here at Blackout Corporate Events LLC are all blind professional trainers providing participants with realistic and powerful blindness experiences to promote empathy, team building, and thriving, diverse workplaces. Yes, yes, you got me. I did memorize a few things from the website, ha-ha.

Well, it’s that realistic part I want to focus in on now. See, blindness isn’t something you can just put on and take off like a blindfold—you can go ahead and take those off by the way. When someone becomes blind, they’re usually in it for the long haul. So wearing a blindfold for half an hour isn’t a very realistic experience.

What’s that, Mark? Oh no, the lights in this room are on actually. Well, that’s the surprise. You’re all blind now! That’s right. There were some chemicals in those blindfolds.

Now, now, don’t worry. It’s almost certainly not permanent. And I know, it’s a lot to take in. But nope, I’m sorry, I can’t take any questions right now. An authentic disability experience has to involve people telling you the things you care about most are not important. So, I’m gonna jump right into your blindness orientation.

Let me introduce you all to Gerald. He’s from the State Commission for the Blind. He’s in charge of teaching you blind life skills, getting you back in the workforce, and helping you learn how to live your new life. Gerald is a real nine-to-five guy. Checked out years ago. He doesn’t really care or know much about blind people, but the position opened up and he took it because almost no one ever gets fired. Well sometimes they do if they’re outright abusive to the blind people, but not if they’re just useless like Gerald.

He has a lot of technology he badly wants to train you on. Sorry, I meant he wants to train you on a lot of technology, badly. He also has four or five minimum wage jobs he can successfully prepare you for. He and his supervisors will be over the moon if 60% of you get a job. Boy that would be blowing right past those annual targets, huh, Gerald?

Susan, you have a question? Yes, that’s right, most of you do still have jobs with American Sky, for now anyway. We told them you’re blind, and most of your bosses are unsure if you can do your jobs anymore. I suspect you’ll all be on the job market soon enough. Stan, you’re fired. Sounded like they were already looking for a reason.

Sure, Mark, it’s illegal to fire you because of a disability. But I don’t think they need to worry about that. Do you know how you would do your job now? Right, well neither do judges or juries.

It should make you angry, Mark. Yes, I’m happy to hear others agreeing. The first hurdle in this exercise is acknowledging the anger you feel toward society. See where that takes you.

I have a few more things to cover before I turn the rest of this session, and your wellbeing for the next several years, over to Gerald.

Well, Susan, you shouldn’t say we can’t do this. We already did. Yes, somebody should do something about all this. But who? Now, Mark, there’s an idea! What can you all do together? Yes, very good. Assert your agency. Combine your efforts to build power as a group. My goodness, you all catch on fast.

Oh wow! Did one of you figure out how to get the screen reader working on your phone? And now you’re showing others how to do it. This is beautiful. Absolutely, one of you should call the authorities. A lawyer, uh-huh, that’s a good idea too.

Actually, Gerald, I’m not sure you should get started with your presentation. I can already hear them discussing the ways you are an institutional barrier to their thriving as blind people. I’ve never seen a group intuit that this early on. You can still present to the afternoon group though. Yeah, take an early lunch. Your favorite thing!

Okay, for those of you with significant others, we’ve let them know what happened. Most of them are considering leaving. Stan, Jenny’s gone. Sounded like she was already looking for a reason too. The court immediately gave her full custody. The judge said it sounded like the kids were already looking for a reason to leave. What’s going on with you, Stan?

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Now what’s this? Stan, you’re presenting a list of demands from the group? Wow, way to step up. Maybe people have been underestimating you. Let’s see here, compensation, medical costs, proper vocational training, punitive damages—this is a really comprehensive list.

Yes, Susan, that’s right! It does feel good to band together. What else could we do? Anybody? A social media campaign against Blackout?! Stan, that’s brilliant! This could be a real turn-around for you, bud. If Jenny could see you now, huh?

Okay I can hear sirens outside so I only have so much longer with you. But yes, Mark, there is power in solidarity and collective action among disenfranchised people. You all are rocketing through the key learnings.

Good morning, officers. Yes, that’s me. I know I have the right to remain silent, but I’m still wrapping up here—oh, you’re moving fast with those cuffs.

Okay, well, to conclude quickly. I’m so proud of you all. Remember this, everyone. Remember this day. Today you discovered what blindness truly is. It is not merely a disorienting loss of sight, or a challenge to beat. It’s an opportunity. It’s a chance to find community, to find yourselves. To be creative, to struggle together and overcome oppression. To love and be alive! This! This too is blindness! And, as I’m physically dragged from this room by the police, I urge you to never let anyone tell you otherwise!

YOUR BLACKOUT TEAM BUILDING RETREAT T-SHIRTS ARE ON THE TABLE BY THE DOOR!

- AN off-site nightmare

- Minor chemical terrorism

- A redemption arc

- Don’t forget the swag

Become a paid subscriber at deepsy.net/subscribe, to get episodes plus the written stories a month earlier, and support what I’m doing here!

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- Opinions so nuanced and complex that even attempting to understand them makes you hurl your phone into a river

- Confusing tepid laughter with violent state oppression

- Cheap shots at New Jersey

- I ask nothing of you; I implore you to do literally nothing

Submit questions you have for me to be answered on future bonus podcasts here: h…

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Hear me read this post on the Deep Sy podcast!

Come, reader, on a journey deep into my psyche. Let us board this mental elevator and descend past the surface thoughts and feelings, below the planning and executive functioning, beneath the anxieties and fears, right on by the deepest contemplations and core memories. Ah, here we are: the Subconscious. Where things happen far beyond my knowledge that nonetheless influence my every thought and action. Where the slightest similarity in the tone of something innocent a friend says and something mean a random teenager said in 2004 causes me to, for some reason, eat ice cream and buy a new podcasting microphone.

It’s weird down here. A stream of songs stuck in my head, the smell of my middle school math classroom, my fear that all rats want to climb up the inside of my pants, and other ephemera loose in my brain.

Oh, and also a perfect map of every New York City Subway line I’ve ever ridden.

This is why we’ve come down here today. To take a look at the mental maps that exist in my mind whether I make any effort to put them there or not. They just appear. It’s always been this way. Though the scale of them has definitely changed.

As a kid, mental mapping was instinctive. For instance, I knew, without anyone saying anything, that the main hallway of my elementary school was shaped like an angular, backwards, lowercase j. The auditorium was inside the hook of the J, with the gym, offices, and cafeteria filling out the rest of the building. The kindergarten classrooms were at the top of the J, and you progressed through the years to the third grade classrooms at the end of the hook. Then there was a hallway sticking out from the bottom left of the j that was clearly tacked on at some historical moment when the school added fourth and fifth graders and needed more rooms.

As you can tell, this map is forever engraved on my mind. To this day, I could take you to Ridgewood, New Jersey, and walk you through the building room-by-room. I could easily tell you the grade of each classroom, or point you to the principal’s office, the nurses room, the library, or the dim basement bathroom I was always terrified to use. Of course, taking you there would be risky because we would probably scare the children, and we might be arrested for trespassing. But the point is I could do it.

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At some point around fourth grade, a woman came to school to show me how to get places in my neighborhood independently. She was an orientation and mobility (O&M) instructor. A professional blind navigation coach. She walked around the school with me and drew a simple diagram of the roads in Sharpie so I could see it with the limited vision I had at the time. She noted that the streets were kind of in the shape of an arrow as I watched her trace the drawing with her finger. I can still picture it. It’s an important memory. Something clicked at that moment. I could map whole areas of land the same way I did buildings. So after we evade the police at my elementary school, I could take you around 15 or 20 surrounding streets, pointing out the houses of my old friends, and giving you tours of all the rooms inside them as well. Hopefully my friends’ parents still live there. They’ll be less startled.

My mapping ability kept expanding as I grew. And after living in New York City for almost 20 years, I have information about whole swaths of neighborhoods where I’ve lived, worked, or been educated imprinted on this subconscious level of my brain. Schematics of subway stations and blueprints of bodegas. In my mind, the city is like a video game’s world map. Anywhere I haven’t been is blacked out. Anywhere I have is clearly detailed in case I ever need to return. I could show you around any of these places almost as efficiently as a sighted person. And they’re all public spaces, so there wouldn’t be anything illegal about us being there this time. Plus, if we made it to New York City, the New Jersey law enforcement who were after us don’t have jurisdiction anymore.

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Because I can’t follow signs or other visual clues while navigating, I’ve paid close attention to details about how the city is organized that aid my course-plotting. Sighted people don’t always notice these things. And if they do, they usually don’t integrate them into how they get around on a day-to-day basis. I’ll come out of a subway station, turn right, and confidently start walking toward an address I’ve never been to before while my wife asks how I know I’m going the right way.

“What do you mean? The building number we’re looking for is in the 100’s on West 53^rd. We’re south of Central Park, so that means it’s between Sixth and Seventh avenue. The building number is odd, so obviously it’s on the north side of the street. We just got off a downtown train, which as we all know runs on the same side of the street as the downtown traffic, which is to say the west side of the street. Since I can hear the noise of multiple lanes of traffic to my left, that’s Sixth. Thus, the street I can hear ahead must be 53^rd. so we’re on the northwest corner of the intersection and that means we’re turning right. Clearly. Why do you ask?”

I have all these maps, ideas, and rules operating together at all times to create turn-by-turn directions to my destination. Contrastingly, sighted people, as far as I can tell, never have any idea where they are an would wander the streets aimlessly until they collapsed from exhaustion if not for the signs and maps telling them precisely where they are and where to go at all moments. This difference in awareness is one of the main reasons it is often extremely hard for me to get helpful directions from sighted people. They simply cannot fathom the navigational calculations that have to process in my head, let alone how to give useful instructions to someone thinking about all that.

The one shining exception to this experience came during a journey on Washington D.C.’s metro over a decade ago. I had to transfer lines at the L’Enfant Plaza station, but had no idea how to get to my next train. I asked a random person where to go, bracing, as always, for instructions of limited value.

“Oh, sure. I’m happy to help. I’m an O&M instructor.”

“Sorry you’re a… Wait, what?!”

“Yeah I work with blind people around the city. This station is shaped like a capital T. You’re currently at the far left end of the line across the top of the T. Just use your cane along this wall until you feel the gap at the intersection with the stem of the T. Turn right, and walk to the bottom of the stem. You’ll hear escalators going down to the other track. Just pull a U-turn and Go to the down escalator on the far right. Once you’re at the bottom, you’ll be right on the platform, and the train going your direction will arrive on the left hand track.”

“Um… that… was literally perfect. I have zero questions.”

“That’s my job,” he said cheerily.

I moved effortlessly through the station to the next train in a stunned daze. I realize society wouldn’t function very well if all sighted people were O&M instructors, but man, a guy can dream…

Well, reader, thank you for joining me on this metaphorical trip deep into my mind. Disappointingly, I’m going to have to end it here. There’s someone knocking on my door saying something about a New Jersey court summons. Fortunately, I also have a mental map of the fire escape outside this window. Gotta go!

- Ride the Brainevator

- Fear the pants rats

- Total elementary school recall

- You and I become fugitives from the law

Become a paid subscriber at deepsy.net/subscribe, to get episodes plus the written stories a month earlier, and support what I’m doing here!

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Please follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The podcast art and other Substack graphics are by Will Cheung

Find me on:

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- 100% accurate definitions of big science words

- Nineteenth century Nickelodeon

- The visual acuity of your belly button

- Rollerblade brand guide dogs

Mentioned in the episode:

- The episode of Invisibilia covering science about the vision that blind people’s brains create from sound

- The humor pieces I’ve been writing for The Squeaky W…

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- Candy scattered to the wind

- Pantomime turtles

- Exotic meats

- A CVS employee who is probably a good hang but not a good CVS employee

Become a paid subscriber at deepsy.net/subscribe, to get episodes plus the written stories a month earlier, and support what I’m doing here!

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Please follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The podcast art and other Substack graphics are by Will Cheung

Find me on:

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- My freelancing website

Automatic doors part, and fluorescent lights flood my already blurred vision as I step into a grocery store. I feel a vague sense of numbness because this will be tedious. I’ve already blocked off more time in my day than anyone should have to for food shopping.

I walk carefully, shortening the sweep of my white cane. I’ve learned through experience that store displays are sometimes top-heavy and precisely in the middle of walking paths. This is not my fault, but someone will act like it is if dozens of candy bags end up on the floor.

I go toward the sounds of checking out. Bar code scanners beeping, bags crinkling, people shouting “Price check!” I’m aiming for somewhere I know will have employees. I’m going to ask for someone to help me find my items, which isn’t an easy sell.

“Excuse me, would any of you employees who are paid less than a living wage and probably dislike being here want to stop what you’re doing, potentially shortening your break or lengthening your workday, to assist a blind shopper, something for which you were never trained and which will undoubtedly be awkward? Hello? Anyone?”

But someone takes pity on me, and gets on the intercom or yells at another employee to make something happen. They tell me that someone is coming and I should wait. Never more detail than that. Because nobody has more detail than that. There’s no process for this. It’s nobody’s job. I stand for a bit. If no one materializes, I decide when to ask again, and how pushy to be.

My shopping buddy arrives. They might be delightful and chatty, or an entertaining character. They might be irretrievably drowning in a mindless workday stupor caused by decades of their face being ground mercilessly into the asphalt by capitalism. Or something in between. Whatever their mood, they’re my companion for the next half hour.

We’re shopping now. I’m telling them what I need. They walk to the relevant section and look around. If they can’t find the specific thing I asked for, I wonder how much effort they put into looking. Occasionally, I’m about 100% sure they barely looked at all. But I have no way of knowing for certain. I could, I suppose, ask directly.

“Hey, when you looked for my item just now, did you do a good job? Rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is a good job and 1 is what you did.”

But that would be rude. So I just give a little verbal nudge.

“Hmmm… it’s usually here…” I say, trailing off and, for some reason, moving my head around like I’m also looking.

My buddy might be moving efficiently. Or not. Sometimes very much not. Sometimes I suspect they are several turtles in a human suit.

Sometimes they don’t know what I want. Recently, I asked a guy at a drug store for floss. He handed me a bag that I could feel had those little plastic forks with floss between the two prongs. I don’t like those. The ratio of floss to environmentally toxic forever trash is pretty bad. I asked for a regular box of floss.

“A what?!” he said, in a tone of surprise that would have been appropriate if I had asked for a rhinoceros burger.

He looked for a few more seconds and handed me something that felt like what I wanted. But I got home and found I had a package of toothpicks. I should have pulled out my phone in the store and had it read me the label. It’s one of the only ways I can be sure what I’m getting. But it’s an uncomfortable option because of how clearly it communicates, “I have reached the conclusion that I do not trust you at all.”

And then, of course, there are the extreme cases. The people who really, truly, disastrously do not understand what I want.

Many years ago, I was looking for a card for a friend’s birthday. I was also trying to convince this friend she should date me. My shopping buddy was a very young man who was happy to help. In retrospect, maybe too happy. Most likely high. I told him I wanted to find a card that was funny.

“Okay, got it,” he said with an excited confidence. “Here, this one. There’s a topless woman.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Yeah, she’s lifting up her shirt and flashing her boobs.”

“You have a greeting card in this CVS that shows boobs?”

“Actually no,” he explained, “See you think it’s boobs, but there’s a hole in the first page of the card where the boobs are. Look, you can feel it.”

“I’m good.”

“So you turn the page and you find out that the boobs were from a different picture on the second page and they’re actually a monkey’s ass cheeks—”

“Sorry?”

“And the monkey is like smiling and wishing her a happy birthday, hahahaha.”

“Um… what else do you have?”

He kept describing cards in that vein. After three or four, I said, “Let’s actually find one that’s not funny.”

As an aside, in case you’re wondering, the friend I was getting the card for is now my wife. I won her heart by making thoughtful romantic decisions like not sending her a picture of a monkey’s ass.

I can, of course, avoid all these problems with the wide selection of grocery and retail delivery apps we have nowadays. But these too have issues. For instance, the occasional item that is about 48 hours past the point where it can be considered human food. Or labor practices worthy of the president. Or dynamic pricing, which is a euphemism for AI digging through your wallet until it hits bedrock. Plus, after you pay for the groceries and tip your delivery person, you get a delivery charge, a service charge, an administrative charge, a surge-pricing charge, a surcharge charge, an [insert charge name when we think of one] charge, and a penalty charge for exceeding the maximum number of charges.

But the in-store experience became so comparatively miserable that I mostly use the apps now. They are faster, less awkward, and don’t zap all my social energy for the next month. I try to make myself feel better about it by tipping well and ordering from the cheapest stores in delivery range. Then I just have to sporadically discard a bag of spinach because it’s growing the mushrooms from “The Last of Us.”

Unfortunately, when I only need to grab a couple things, I still have to resort to shopping buddies. Inevitably, as I ask a cashier for the third time whether anyone is coming, or I request tissues and get toilet paper, or someone insists that they looked around thoroughly and this grocery store does not in fact sell groceries, I remember why I don’t do this anymore.

- Robots lie to me

- My daughter loves the lying robots

- I disparage the lying robots by calling them creatively middling

- Other robots come for the jobs of guide dogs

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Every Who Down in Who-ville liked Christmas a lot.

But the Grinch, who lived just north of Who-ville, Did NOT!

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!

Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.

It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right.

It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.

Or maybe, just maybe,

His problem was sight.

For the Grinch was a grump, quite a miserable guy.

And he saw everything out of both of his eyes.

But the Whos down in Who-ville were perfectly kind.

They were lovely and gentle,

And totally blind!

(Well, there was one exception, and we’ll get there, no doubt.

One blind Who, uh, let’s say, had some stuff to work out).

The Grinch knew in his heart that he had to be right

About Christmas for he was the one who had sight.

“What can you really know if you can’t see a thing?”

Thought the Grinch to himself. “They should make me their king.”

“I could tell them what’s wrong. I could tell them what’s right.

I could lead them through their sad, eternal, blind night.”

“And the first thing I’ll do from my new rightful throne?

Make it clear that their Christmas, I do not condone!”

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Then he loaded some bags, and some old empty sacks

On a ramshackle sleigh, and hitched up his dog, Max.

“This is stop number one,” the old Grinchy Claus hissed.

And he climbed to a roof, empty bags in his fist.

Then he slid down the chimney. A rather tight pinch.

But, if Santa could do it, then so could the Grinch.

Then he started to slink with a smile most unpleasant

In this Who family room with his eyes on their presents.

Then a small voice behind him he knew was a Who

Said, “Hello Mr. Grinch. I’ve been waiting for you.”

He turned around fast, and he saw Cindy-Lou

A cute little Who, standing just three foot two.

“But now why is she pointing?” he thought with a frown,

For the Who girl was pointing straight down at the ground.

The Grinch cast his gaze down, and he felt like a dope

For around his green foot was a circle of rope.

Cindy-Lou pushed a button, and with a tight pinch,

The rope grabbed the green ankle, and hoisted the Grinch.

As he hung in the air, the Who sprayed him with mase.

Then she cocked her fist back, and punched him in the face.

Cindy-Lou got a knife, and he thought he was dead,

But she cut the rope loose, and he fell on his head.

She held up her remote. There was one button more.

When she pressed it, the Grinch went right through a trap door.

He fell to the basement, and heard his knee pop.

Then some large heavy items on his head were dropped.

Some pots and some pans, then a glass and a vase,

Then a chair, then some books, then the whole wood bookcase.

Well the Grinch now was covered in bruises and cuts

But the Who-girl jumped down, kicked him right in the nuts!

“Okay, grinch, don’t you move. You should not try to run.”

Said that Cindy-Lou Who as she pulled out a gun.

“Oh, like you can use that. A blind girl with a Glock?

Why, you can’t even see, let alone take a shot!”

Then the Grinch heard a “bang!” And he felt a great fear

As a bullet had just barely missed his right ear!

Then the click of the hammer, she aimed right at him.

The Grinch yelled “I give up!” And young Cindy-Lou grinned.

“But please tell me one thing,” said the Grinch, “I must know.

Tell me how you had all these traps ready to go.

You had information, prepared these attacks.”

Then Cindy-Lou Who threw a dog treat to Max.

“Max! You betrayer! You scoundrel! You mut!”

But another loud “Bang!” and he kept his mouth shut.

“Now you listen here, and you listen real good.

I won’t end your life, though I certainly could.

In the morning this town will have our Christmas feast.

If you don’t want to cook alongside the roast beast,

Then you must stop believing you’re better than me —

And the Whos here in Who-ville — because you can see.”

Then the Grinch looked despondent, distraught, and he cried,

“I’ve been such a fool, full of ableist pride!”

Then a thought struck the Grinch, and he started to wail.

“This whole town must hate me! They’ll throw me in jail!”

“Do not fret. Here in Who-ville that won’t be your fate

For the Whos don’t believe in the carceral state.

We repair social harm, and we all strive for peace.

So we burned down the jail, defunded the police.”

“But what of your punching? Your kicking? Your gun?”

“Well you can’t blame a Who girl for having some fun!”

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The Grinch was so shocked that he fell to his knees.

“So you’ll let me go, let me do as I please?”

Then the Who girl came close, got up right in his face.

“Don’t forget you’d be dead were it not for my grace.

You will now get along with the Whos in the town.

You’ll show love and relinquish your silly, fake crown.”

Then she bandaged him up, and she took him upstairs.

Cindy-Lou grabbed her cane, and they walked to the square.

With the lights all strung up and a song in the air,

Every Who down in Who-ville was gathered right there.

The Grinch walked among them, asked each for forgiveness.

Of course, they said “Yes!” After all, it was Christmas.

He felt love. He felt joy. He could not help but grin.

But, confused, he saw Cindy-Lou staring at him.

The Who pointed two fingers, one each at both eyes,

Then one straight at the Grinch, which was quite a surprise.

And he gaped as he stared at young Cindy-Lou Who

When he saw the blind girl mouthing “I’m watching you.”

They all sang, and they danced, and they had a great feast.

And he, HE HIMSELF, the Grinch carved the roast beast.

A great lesson, the Grinch took from this fateful night.

We are all just as good, those without and with sight.

And there was one more thing the Grinch knew to be true.

He would never — NO NEVER — cross Cindy-Lou Who.

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The podcast art and other Substack graphics are by Will Cheung

Today’s music: 30 Seconds” by Andre Louis

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