This is by far the most amazing, and enlightening tasks I have done thus far. I now feel very fortunate that i have the ability to see, and I now know what it feels like to be lost in the dark.
Sat, April 21, 2007
4:05-9:07 P.M.

I posted a good chunk of my pics because I felt it was important

My friends, Mr. T, and Connor wanted to go to the mall, and I decided that it would be a wonderful time to finally get this task done. So after a good amount of digging through my sister's sewing closet, i found a suitable piece of square brown fabric that would serve as my blindfold. Little did I know that for the next five hours, I would see nothing but pure black! We left my house, Mr. T. guiding me off of my front porch and quickly into a bush, and then to Connor's old Buick. I hopped into the back seat, and we began this incredible journey into the dark. I soon became lost in my darkness, surprised at my sudden loss of vision, and unsure of how to adapt. After a while I was told that we had arrived at the malls parking lot, but Connor was having a great amount of difficulty finding a spot. This of course meant to me that I would definitely have an audience inside. I opened my door and found myself being yelled at, apparently the car next to us was only a foot away, so I had to squeeze blindly out of the Buick, and onto the wet pavement. Unfortunately my friend found a parking place about 500 yards or more away from the mall entrance. This led to me being escorted by my two friends, whom I wasn't sure I could trust completely (and learned not to eventually), over a great expanse of parking lot in the rain. I was very cautious walking, except my friends were pushing me to move faster and faster, so we sped along, tripping over curbs and the occasional bushes that are native to most parking lots. We eventually reached the entrance, much to my relief, and I promptly ran into the door. Being blind is not easy, let me tell you. So we entered the mall through a Macey's I believe, and I was quickly led into some undergarments, or I think that's what they were. Anyway, we soon came across our first escalator, these frightened me the most, especially when I wasn't told whether it was an up or down escalator. We then wandered throughout the mall, me being told what I was running into, Connor yelling at me to stop running into people, me replying "Screw you, I'm blind!," all the while I'm plugging away at my camera's button, and observing with my other senses.
One thing that I was beginning to notice was that in the mall there is an extraordinary amount of sound, and that it was extremely hard to focus on something in particular. They led me into a See's Candy shop to get a free sample, and immediately I heard conversations start up, and the lady at the counter asked, and we said we were experimenting on how it feels to be blind. I am not sure what the flavor of the candy was, but it was good. we wandered around a while before Mr.T. decided that he wanted to go into Barne's & Noble's, so I followed, and I soon was able to focus on the situation as it was very quiet in the store. They led me around, and had me take a few pictures of things, which they thought were pretty funny. They also had me listen to some weird music, and what I think was a movie preview for God knows what.
After wandering through the mall a little longer we got bored and decided to leave. So we proceeded towards where we thought we had parked, and ended up on the wrong side of the store, so we had to trek all the way to the other side where we had started. (if i hadn't been blind it wouldn't have happened). Anyway, we decided that we were all hungry and that food was necessary. I, having been blindfolded for over an hour and a half at this point figured that I might as well finish this entire outing in the dark (plus I was having too much fun and didn't want to take off the blindfold) . We headed over to the Pine Garden, a Chinese restaurant next to Safeway, and Connor decided to park as far away from the restaurant just to be funny, so once again I had to be led across a parking lot, dodging curbs, and bushes here and there until we finally reached the door. Sadly it was at this point that my cameras batteries failed, so you will just have to trust me with the rest of the proof. This was by far the most interesting part of the whole experience, the fact that I could not see turned eating into a whole new thing, and it took a little while for me to get used to it. Ordering food when one is incapable of reading the menu is quite hard, thankfully my friends are both literate, and so they had a lot of fun reading me menu items like game-show hosts. I ordered a plate of Mongolian beef and noodles, which turned out to be quite a lot of food, although I never actually saw what I was eating. I made it as fun as possible, and I even chose to eat with chopsticks (although I am a god of chopsticks, and could tie my shoes with them if I tried), I think that made it easier because I wasn't randomly spearing my plate looking for food, I actually could find it. After drinking a lot of tea, (my friends thought it was hilarious when I would grab a sugar packet and have to aim carefully to get it in the cup) I soon felt the call of nature, so Mr.T. helped me find my way to the bathroom, and the first thing he did when we found it was say, "The light switch is right here," at which point I started laughing at his comment, things become a little funnier when you can't see. After I finished doing my business and washing my hands, I spent about two minutes trying to find the doorknob, which I swear was moving all over the wall. I went back sat down, drank some of my tea, and instantly spit it out. This is the point at which I stopped trusting Connor, he had replaced my tea with soy sauce.

After eating as much as we could, and paying our bills we decided that milkshakes at Shari's sounded like a great idea. So off we went once again, to the Shari's not far from my house. We went in, were seated, and ordered our milkshakes, I got a chocolate because they are awesome. After sitting for a little while another waitress comes over and just had to ask why I was blindfolded, and so we told her, and she just got a huge kick out of me, thought I was hilarious. The night had set in, and i had been in darkness for almost five hours straight. I even kept the blindfold on when paying my bill with my credit card, which requires me to sign a receipt, I have know idea whether it looked right or not, only the word of my friends whom I can't really trust. Right after handing over the signed receipt, I turned and ran square into the wall, embarrassed, and mad at my guides, I just leaned up against the wall in shame. Connor came over to rescue me, and led me out to the car. I then was dropped off at my house, walked onto the porch, opened the door and walked into the umbrella stand, at which point i felt it was time to lose the blindfold, and let my eyes adjust after five hours of waking darkness. It hurt, and I couldn't see for a little while.

Looking back on it, I feel almost like I have just had a dream, that I skipped my entire day, and dreamed it instead. It almost makes me sad that i didn't see anything for five hours of my life, and that i was blind while hanging out with friends. But I believe it was worth it, and that I have learned a lot about those less fortunate than myself.