No need to ask mom

This is something that I have written about on several occasions and continue to write about. It's all about sales persons who seem to feel that when speaking to me, they feel more comfortable doing so by asking my mom or whoever is with me at the time.

A few weeks ago I went shopping with mom, and as we started to choose some clothes for me to try on the sales lady came up beside us and proceeded to start asking, "What does she like? What are her favorite colors? Would she like this jacket, you think?"

In the normal scheme of things, I would have said something but on that day my tongue seemed to have frozen and I let it all go. When we got home, I asked my mom for her observations and she agreed with me that she would not have appreciated the sales lady doing this to her. I guess that the reason that I may not have spoken up was that the sales lady did not seem to
realize her insensitivity. She was very nice and extremely polite.

This is really not an excuse for my not having spoken up. If I and my fellow blind and sight-impaired brothers and sisters hope to change things, we need to speak up and do it consistently, politely, and gently. Educating others is the only way to do it and hopefully the by word of mouth technique will do the rest.

I'm Donna J. Jodhan your friendly accessibility advocate wishing you a terrific day and urging you to go out there and help spread the word. Visit www.afb.org or www.acb.org to learn more.