excerpts: chapter 1
Chapter 1: Why Do Smart People Do Dumb Things?
When our son-in-law Salvador visited the United States for the first time, we drove around my hometown to show him a little of Middle America. Nearing my bank, I remembered that I needed some cash and entered the lane for the ATM machine. While we waited for the transaction to be processed, I gestured towards the monitor and said to Salvador: “We’ve become more sensitive to the needs of handicapped people in the United States. See the instructions here in Braille?” I waited a moment while his wife Kalyn translated what I had said, feeling a bit smug. I was proud of the sensitivity that this feature of our bank demonstrated. Salvador murmured something in Spanish, and then he and Kalyn burst out laughing. Miffed, I waited to hear what was so funny. Then Kalyn translated: “Salvador just wondered how many blind drivers you have here in Elmhurst.”
The Braille instructions that I had been pointing out with such pride just moments earlier now appeared totally idiotic. Even as I grasped for straws, offering the idea that a sighted driver could be driving a blind individual to the bank, deep down I knew that it made little sense to have Braille instructions on equipment at a drive-through facility. I felt stupid for not having seen how foolish those instructions were in this setting and for touting them as evidence of our cultural superiority. Salvador’s point was glaringly obvious. How could I have missed it?