Today a blind man checked my breath.

Yup. This morning, as I was exiting the subway station at the 23rd St. stop on the Broadway line, I saw an oldish chubby blind man struggling to find his way with his stick. I offered my assistance and he asked if I was going across 23rd St. to 6th Avenue. I said yes, even though I wasn’t. Then he asked if we could make a short stop, in a little store, to buy some cookies. I said jokingly “hey, thanks a lot, I’m diabetic, I don’t want to think about cookies.”

We stopped in the store, he handed the guy two dollars and the guy handed him 2 small packs of Oreo’s without a word. His daily afternoon snack I guessed. Then I walked him to The Home for the Blind on 23rd. We were walking and talking and I asked if he could see at all. He said a little. He could see my face, sort of. He said what mostly happens when someone walks with him is that he can smell their breath. I OF COURSE said “do I have bad breath?"

He said, “lemme see” -

and I proceeded to huff my breath in his face…I said “well?" He said it was ok.
That didn’t sound very promising…

July 23, 2013