464: Invisible Made Visible
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What peculiar challenges does Ryan Knighton face as a blind person?
Ryan started going blind when he was 18, so it's been a long time now that he can't see. And one night he flies to Chicago for this work thing and gets to his hotel room and he wants to call his wife back home in Canada to let her know that he's arrived safely. So all he needs to do is find the phone.
And so I walk into the room and I find the bed. And then to the left of the bed I feel along and I find this nightstand. which is where I expect the phone to be. And so I feel up the nightstand and there's no phone. Fine, so I reach across the bed to the other side and find the other nightstand. And I feel that one up and there's no phone. That's unusual, right? It's a bit odd, right?
So Ryan can shuffle cautiously around until his knees graze into things, and that's how he finds a sofa, which orients him.
And so I turn to where I think there might be a table, and poof, there's a coffee table. So I grope this coffee table for a while, and there's no phone on it. Grope is kind of a funny word to use for this. It sort of feels that way, though. You know, you're just sort of, because you don't know where anything begins or ends, so you really maul it.
He says that as he moves around any new place, he doesn't exactly draw a map in his head. He says that it's more like wandering around in a first-person video game, one where nothing is visible until he touches it. So he figures, okay, let's see what is on the other side of this coffee table that he's found. And he edges forward in the room. And I find there's a desk.
And I'm like, aha! the desk, right? So I feel around on the desk and there's a lamp and there's the notepad I'll never use and there's stuff, but there's no phone. So I'm left to my last sort of blind guy resort, which is I go back to the beginning, you know, back to the bed and I find the wall and I start Marcel Marceau-ing the walls. You know, I'm wiping them up and down and I round the fourth corner and I get to the bathroom and I go past the bathroom and there's nothing. And I feel behind me again, and the bed is back behind me again. So I've circled this room. And I even thought, well, maybe it's like a super fancy hotel, and maybe there's a phone in the bathroom. And I go in there, and there's nothing.
So I circle the room two more times this way, wiping it down. And I check the coffee table again. I check the desk again. And I just figure, forget it. I'll just go to bed and try again tomorrow.
So he goes to bed, doesn't call his wife, sleeps. And in the morning he wakes up to the sound of something curious, a phone ringing. And Groggy, he follows the sound and finds somehow now there is a phone in this room.
And the phone is on a coffee table. Now, I know I felt that thing up to an illicit degree. Like, I mauled that coffee table, and there was nothing on that table last night. And so I answer the phone, and it's my wife. And she says, why didn't you call me last night? And I said, well, there was no phone. But there is now.
She doesn't believe him that there was no phone, but this is kind of par for the course when you're married to a blind guy.
And so we talk, and then I hang up the phone, and I go to get back into bed. And there's now a wall there.
A wall. Where the bed should be is now a wall. He feels for the sofa. The sofa's right where it should be. The wall behind the sofa is right where it should be, right there in place. He feels along the sofa again, inches towards where the bed should be, and yes, it's still a wall.
And I'm totally disoriented at this point. Like, it's funny and it's also sort of terrifying because I know the bed was there and now there's a wall and I keep touching the wall thinking maybe this time it'll go away. And I go to the left, and there's another wall now. And I'm a grown man, and I'm lost in a hotel room. So what's your next move? What do you do?
How does Ryan Knighton communicate his blindness to his daughter?
I ended up doing the Marcel Marceau thing. I start wiping the walls, feeling my way along the edges, and it wraps back around until I find the bed is actually behind me.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What peculiar challenges does Ryan Knighton face as a blind person?
0:01–4:27
2
How does Ryan Knighton communicate his blindness to his daughter?
4:27–9:29
3
What is the significance of Taylor Dayne in Tig Notaro's life?
9:29–13:20
4
How does Tig Notaro repeatedly encounter Taylor Dayne?
13:20–58:22