I'm in Walmart the other day and we needed to get new band-aids. We pick up this one box and it has Braille on it. Now, I realize there are blind people out there and this is probably a good thing to do - they have menus in Braille and such...but, picture this scenario if you will:
A blind person walking around in Walmart trying to find the band-aids fumbling around with 20 million other products on the shelves that don't have the Braille "band-aids" raised dots on them...knocking things over left and right.
First off, I think the blind person would probably have had someone "not blind" drive them to Walmart, right? Most likely - unless they came on a bus - but since there's no buses where I live to go to Walmart...I totally discounted that idea.
Anyway, if they had a "not blind" friend, wouldn't they just ask them for the band-aids? A "not blind" person doesn't need to have the little Braille dots on the package in order to find them. Or perhaps, in a perfect world, a Walmart worker would see the person needed aid of some sort and offer to help them out...but since this has probably never, ever happened in recorded history...it probably wouldn't then, either.
So, okay, the blind person goes to buy the band-aids and pulls a $20 bill out of his wallet. It has no little raised dots and the cashier gives him change back for a $5. Then the blind person takes the band-aids back home and puts them in the top right drawer in their bathroom.
I'm not blind - but if I put them in the top right drawer of my bathroom - they'd probably still be in it when I go to look for them later (no pun intended). And, if I closed my eyes and went into my bathroom right now, I'm sure I could deduce which box in the top right-hand drawer is band-aids - c'mon it's not shaped like a tube of toothpaste or the jar of Vaseline. Even if I had eight boxes of other stuff in there shaped just like a band-aid box, I could always open one box, stick my fingers inside and go "Nope, not band-aids...nope again...yep, band-aids".
So what is the friggen REAL reason Braille is ON the band-aid box???
I figure the band-aid people were gathered around their conference room one meeting-day thinking of new and innovative band-aid technology and couldn't really think of anything new in the adhesive, print, or bendy realm...so one guy in the back who was filling in for his boss who was enjoying his "Three Martini Lunch" piped up, "Uh...how about Braille?"
Three of the people sitting there laughed - but the guy in charge, in typical board-room executive decision-making fashion, fired them and appointed "George the accounting dweeb" head of "Box Design" and the others learned an important lesson about stifling all laughter until you get back to your cubicle.
The executive-in-charge then told some other dweeb guy to gather up demographics costing in the hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to ascertain if the mere presence of Braille made the company look more sympathetic than their competition - and, face it, who really needs to look more sympathetic than a maker of things like "ouchless" band-aids?
No one.
So, naturally, I bought the other brand of band-aids.
That'll teach them to let three people go in this economy...the unsympathetic bastards.
A blind person walking around in Walmart trying to find the band-aids fumbling around with 20 million other products on the shelves that don't have the Braille "band-aids" raised dots on them...knocking things over left and right.
First off, I think the blind person would probably have had someone "not blind" drive them to Walmart, right? Most likely - unless they came on a bus - but since there's no buses where I live to go to Walmart...I totally discounted that idea.
Anyway, if they had a "not blind" friend, wouldn't they just ask them for the band-aids? A "not blind" person doesn't need to have the little Braille dots on the package in order to find them. Or perhaps, in a perfect world, a Walmart worker would see the person needed aid of some sort and offer to help them out...but since this has probably never, ever happened in recorded history...it probably wouldn't then, either.
So, okay, the blind person goes to buy the band-aids and pulls a $20 bill out of his wallet. It has no little raised dots and the cashier gives him change back for a $5. Then the blind person takes the band-aids back home and puts them in the top right drawer in their bathroom.
I'm not blind - but if I put them in the top right drawer of my bathroom - they'd probably still be in it when I go to look for them later (no pun intended). And, if I closed my eyes and went into my bathroom right now, I'm sure I could deduce which box in the top right-hand drawer is band-aids - c'mon it's not shaped like a tube of toothpaste or the jar of Vaseline. Even if I had eight boxes of other stuff in there shaped just like a band-aid box, I could always open one box, stick my fingers inside and go "Nope, not band-aids...nope again...yep, band-aids".
So what is the friggen REAL reason Braille is ON the band-aid box???
I figure the band-aid people were gathered around their conference room one meeting-day thinking of new and innovative band-aid technology and couldn't really think of anything new in the adhesive, print, or bendy realm...so one guy in the back who was filling in for his boss who was enjoying his "Three Martini Lunch" piped up, "Uh...how about Braille?"
Three of the people sitting there laughed - but the guy in charge, in typical board-room executive decision-making fashion, fired them and appointed "George the accounting dweeb" head of "Box Design" and the others learned an important lesson about stifling all laughter until you get back to your cubicle.
The executive-in-charge then told some other dweeb guy to gather up demographics costing in the hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to ascertain if the mere presence of Braille made the company look more sympathetic than their competition - and, face it, who really needs to look more sympathetic than a maker of things like "ouchless" band-aids?
No one.
So, naturally, I bought the other brand of band-aids.
That'll teach them to let three people go in this economy...the unsympathetic bastards.
funny blog...I will just have to check the first aide section at my Walmart this week
ReplyDeletethis cracked me the hell up
ReplyDeleteGlad it exceeded my expectations for you. :)
ReplyDeleteYou should check out my Viagra and Progressive Insurance blogs...you might like them, too.
I know it long but The brile is not just to tell you they are plasters By law everything has to have ingreadiance on them even plasters so that if somebody has an alergic reaction to something in the plasters the company are not liable it is also very inportant for food stuff and over the counter medication. As for going to the shop on their own there are those who have guide dogs, the dogs are cleaver but as yet they have not been trained to read and talk There is also a guy who lives across the road from me who goes to the shop on his own nearly every day, with just with his bag and white stick, he knows the amount of his notes by touch alone because there is a raised bit especially for the blind. When you loose one of your seances your others increase to compensate for it.So there are reasons :)
ReplyDeleteI love your way of thinking, which is why you got my "Sullied" award. However, I find it hard to believe that you changed your template and didn't take that opportunity to jettison the damn thing. Let's face it - some of the good ladies who visit here are going to see your new favorite award, then scroll down slightly and see my ugly mug, and... well, I hate to think of the consequences.
ReplyDeleteVery funny, and not PC. A winning combination.
ReplyDeleteWhat I love is the Braille buttons on drive thru ATM machines. If the blind guy's driving, access to cash might not be his most immediate problem.
I swear the new format eats whole things periodically. Then you reload and they are back - then others are missing. What the point with that???
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Sully - it's my award and I only have a handful, so it's staying! :)
Maybe I'm missing the Braille instructions on how to get this thing to work the way it should. Dammit it ate my three "Maybe you'd like THESE blogs, too" thingy. Sheesh - they were there yesterday.
The Band-Aid police will get you...
ReplyDeleteYou were discussing Band-Aid® Brand Adhesive Bandages right? Or were they Curad? Or Wal-Band?
The stoic white-shirted lawyers from Johnson & Johnson are gonna get cha!
...oh yeah, and then you will need an aspirin and kleenex because you will have to xerox a lot of documents.
ReplyDelete:)
Actually, they are the Band-Aid people...and that Johnson family is pretty whack. So, yeah, if you don't see a new blog up in a week...you should probably contact the authorities.
ReplyDeleteBut wait...the odds of them finding this out is pretty slim with the very small handful of people who read this, dammit!
But a nice lawsuit from them could get me a nice book deal. ;)
Always thinking...I am. :)
You've been thinking again, haven't you, Mariann?
ReplyDeleteOr drinking.
Either way, though, this is funny. And probably truer than you think.
Mike - Thinking and drinking. But not enough of either. ;)
ReplyDeleteMethinks Vanessa was blind when she wrote her comment. Am still trying to imagine how I might "loose" one of my "seances". Dammit, where in tarnation is that Weejee Board? Reckon I've lost it, so there goes trying to contact Uncle Morty.
ReplyDeletedon't you think that blind people have medicine cabinets or closet in the bathroom and they have several small boxes all about the same size and when trying to locate a band-aid that the braille might help them narrow the search a little faster in their own house? Of coarse the braille isn't there to help them locate or identify it in the store, you're a truly insensitive bitch and I dare you to try try going around your house blindfolded for a couple days and see if you didn't wish you had some means of identifying items you own.
ReplyDeletedon't you think that blind people have medicine cabinets or closet in the bathroom and they have several small boxes all about the same size and when trying to locate a band-aid that the braille might help them narrow the search a little faster in their own house? Of coarse the braille isn't there to help them locate or identify it in the store, you're a truly insensitive bitch and I dare you to try try going around your house blindfolded for a couple days and see if you didn't wish you had some means of identifying items you own.
ReplyDelete