I erred. I goofed, plain and simple and I felt a little foolish afterwards.
I was in the checkout lane at the grocery store, ready to pay
for my relatively few purchases. I opted
to use cash instead of a credit card and listened for the total as called out
(okay, spoken not too loudly) by the cashier.
I was so clever, or at least I thought I was being
clever. The total was $9.73, so I gave
the woman ten dollars and 73 cents so I could get a dollar bill back from
her. Instead, she gave me one dollar and
10 cents back.
As soon as she did it, I knew what I’d done wrong. I misheard nine dollars and seventy-three
cents when she’d really said nine dollars and sixty-three cents. I failed to follow my usual practice of
looking at the cash register’s digital readout of the total to make sure what I
heard matched what had been said.
I’ve done this before.
In fact I’ve done it a number of times.
I have a lot of trouble accurately hearing numbers called out in noisy
places. While I can wish forever and a
day that everyone will face me and speak both loudly and clearly, the truth is
simple: it is my responsibility to check to make sure I hear things correctly
or risk making a mistake.
In the grocery store checkout lane I can look at the numbers
on the cash register. I could ask the
cashier to verify that I understand the total.
I could also bring a personal amplifier and ask the cashier to speak
into the microphone or even ask the clerk to write the number down for me. In the end, this situation’s resolution is in
my hands.
I am a firm believer in accommodations provided by business
and government entities. I think it is
proper, under ADA, to request and receive amplification, real-time captioning
and/or ASL interpretation, whichever works best for you. But for a quick trip to the grocery I need to
make sure communication works for me.
Now, if I ever meet with the President of the United States
perhaps I’ll request real-time captioning.
That way I’ll have a transcript of the event!
B. Burton
