Something Amiss
First, I apologize for the dearth of posts lately… I've been busy with work and such… and let's face it. I'm not exactly that exciting of a person to come up with something fascinating for you to read every day. Alright, now that that's settled, let's move on.
I had to go up to the public library today to drop off some books that were coming perilously close to being overdue – I haven't had as much free time to read as I used to. Because the person who designed the new library building is a moron, the parking lot is positioned about as far from the entrance as you can possibly make it without crossing into a new zip code. I don't know who looked at that design and said, “yeah, that looks good.”
I digress. Partly because I only had a few books to return, and mostly because I'm completely lazy, I opted for the book drop on the side of the building. It's a pretty standard outdoor book drop: metal hinged door mounted to the brick exterior. You drive up in your car (or bike, or whatever suits your fancy), pull down the door, drop your books/magazines/abandoned kittens in the gaping maw of the collector, and hightail it out of there before the coke-bottle-eyeglassed octogenarian drawing a paycheck from the library comes after you looking to exact a pound of flesh for the thirty minutes you were overdue. Like I said, pretty standard.
Except as I glanced at the door just prior to depositing my nearly overdue reading materials, I noticed something… odd.
I noticed a Braille plate at the bottom of the drop box door. Yeah, a Braille plate on the drive-through drop box. The drive-through box. The box you probably will never see (sorry, sorry) unless you plan on driving around to that side of the building.
Now, I understand that there are Braille dots on some odd things by default. There might be Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM, for example, simply because keypad buttons tend to come standard with some sort of Braille lettering. They just happened to be installed on an ATM that you drive up to. That doesn't apply in this situation, because this plate was quite clearly affixed after the rest of the box was put together. It was an aftermarket Braille plate, you might say.
Now, sorry, but what blind person is groping around the sides of the library going “Damnit, where is that book drop??” I'm not making fun of blind people here… I'm just pondering the likelihood of someone who's that visually impaired wandering around the outside of the library and accidentally stumbling upon the book drop.
“Huzzah! Now that I've accidentally found some large piece of metal, I shall grope it to see if I can discern its purpose in this world!
*gasp*
By the beard of Zeus, it has Braille!! I'm saved!”
I'm just sayin'.
Dan said,
July 6, 2007, 11:05 am
Realize that some people may simply walk right up to a book drop or an ATM machine even if it is a drive-through one. I myself have a Wells Fargo Bank a couple of blocks away from me, and it has a drive-through ATM that I never, well, drive through. I simply walk up to it and get my cash. of course it can get akward when there is a line of cars waiting for me, but either way, that's what I do. (Stop laughing.. I'm too young to drive.) =)
And yes, for the record, the braille is likely put on those machines as default and they don't remove it because, well, there's no point.
Tigerblade said,
July 6, 2007, 12:18 pm
Dan - the Braille wasn't on there by default. It's clear (though maybe not so much in the photo as in real life) that the Braille plate was added later. It's considerably newer than the rest of the box.
And this box isn't exactly in a location that someone would just walk up to - it's in an awkward position on the building, and wouldn't be obvious to passers-by.