The Seeing Eye Dog
By Gene Aronowitz
When I was a public official in mental health, I was expected to spend much of my time at annual meetings and celebrations of the various agencies with which I worked. One night, I walked into such an event. The room was already crowded and, in their attempts to be heard, those in the hall were out-shouting each other, creating a disorienting, discordant din. I started looking around to find the right someone with whom to talk, which was difficult for me because the lights were dim, and my eyesight has always been poor. I have lost a few inches in height as I have aged, but even then, I was of lower-than-average stature. My head was slightly elevated as I tried to find my way around the room.
I walked forward, looking to my right and left, and was surprised when the lower part of one of my legs collided with a soft object, throwing me off balance. I heard a whining bark, looked down, and below me was a German shepherd seeing-eye-dog. As I careened, I instinctively reached out to stop my descent and grabbed the arm of the blind guy who was holding the loose leash. Shocked, he shouted a very audible “Shit!” His screech caused a cascade of head-turning by those around us. Then, there was silence, not a slowly diminishing fade-out kind of silence, but a sudden power failure kind. I shoved the dog aside with my leg, not thinking how this could result in a painful piercing of pointy canine teeth. I pulled the blind guy toward me until both of us were standing somewhat erect. My face was red, my heart was pounding, my head was throbbing, and my hands were cramping.
I was humiliated and felt a little like President Ford must have felt five years earlier when he slipped on the stairs of Air Force One, a scene that millions of people had a good time watching during countless videotape reruns.
I moved my head close to my victim’s ear and apologized. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He said nothing, just tilted his head. His face bore a blank expression, possibly connoting a carefully controlled rage. I started worrying about what people in the hall would say about me to each other during the event and what they would say to others in the coming days. I apologized again and moved away, trying to figure out how to salvage the rest of that already disastrous evening. I thought my best bet would be to make a self-deprecating joke about it, but I really didn’t feel very much like laughing.
