The Blind Girl Walking in the Rain

An interesting thing happened to me today before I went in to work. I decided to walk from a coffeeshop on MacDougal Street close to the ABCD subway station rather than take the train one stop to the Broadway/Lafayette stop since the series of downpours had subsided into a mild drizzle.

As I was walking between Thompson and LaGuardia streets on Bleeker, I noticed a blind young woman walking with her seeing-eye dog. She was passing people as if ready to ask a question but at the last moment deciding against it. I don’t recall whether or not I volunteered myself by walking close to her, perhaps it was a subconscious act, but the young woman stopped me to ask if the direction she was walking was towards Mott Street. I told her it was a ten minute walk in the opposite direction. She informed me that three other people had given her three different directions. Sympathizing with the poor girl who lost her way, I decided to take her there myself since it wasn’t too out of the way from my own destination. The only way to go was straight east, and upon hitting Mott Street, taking a right.

The girl’s seeing-eye dog seemed as if it were drunk, confused, a bit dim, or maybe all three because he was taking her in zigzags, stopping randomly and crossing in front then side-to-side of her. I navigated and said when to stop and when to go, wondering all the while if my behavior seemed condescending or out of place. While walking and making polite conversation with the girl, she revealed to me her destination: Planned Parenthood.

The rain started up again and began to come down harder with each passing block. By the time we reached the door of the pro-choice edifice, my pants were soaked and it started to pour. The young woman thanked me and allowed her dog to struggle and finally make it’s way into the building. After we parted I realized something, I had lead this blind girl to a place where she was either picking up some form of contraception, or reducing the population by deciding to have some tiny fetus aborted. It believe it was the former, but on a more depressing note, the blind girl with the crooked eyes, and for whatever reason she had to go there was still getting laid more than me.