Not on an inaccessible device!

RantWoman separately and enthusiastically endorses an initiative by Staples in cooperation with several blind organizations related to improved shopping experiences for people with disabilities. After RantWoman's sordid experiences last night during her nightly exercise in the aisles of food stores, RantWoman wishes to underscore how sorely initiatives such as this one are needed.

After an exciting day of fairly stationary work, RantWoman set out on a quest for exercise, oat bran and black tea. Since RantWoman wound up visiting three stores and staring down gorgeous views along E Madison St, you may assume that more items than that came home.

First stop: Madison Market Organic produce, multiple kinds of grain and starch in bulk along with honey, molasses, various soy products, vitamins, supplements, wine, good bread, deli items, and also bulk cleaning products. Favorite item: any of several choices in multigrain frozen waffles. There is a whole wall of bins full of bulk dry items and RantWoman had not made a list to remind herself she also wanted polenta. RantWoman had to ask for help first to find the oat bran and nutritional yeast and then to find the all-important bin numbers on each. Sigh. Bigger print, better contrast would not hurt anyone, especially when they insist on putting some of the bins at ankle level.

Madison Market, being a food co-op is more likely than say Safeway to attract help who use words like "groovious" and "mellow." RantWoman is not quite sure of the exchange that led to her explaining about a sufficiency already of drama in her life and her own attempts to be mellow. The clerk said something like "well, that makes one of us." RantWoman decided she did not need to know more especially since "mellow" at the Madison Market cash register lasts just about until RantWoman has to interact with their stupid flat screen, no contrast, utterly non-tactile Point of Sale devices.

RantWoman CAN actually see the displays, provided she screws up her eyes, gets her nose about 2 inches from the device and punches her pin in quickly between the spells of visual randomness. Or since RantWoman did not want cash, she could have just made the clerk run the bill as a credit card transaction. Either way the rant potential is just way too high!

Next, RantWoman would be terribly happy to flack the nearby Trader Joes but she is not finding a satisfactory link with location. Satisfactory here means from the company itself and not buried in some pdf file with locations all over the county. RantWoman went there anyway! RantWoman gave in to the temptation to see whether encasing the pears in one of those generally annoying plastic clamshells would help her get the fruit home without turning it into pear butter on the way. So far yes. RantWoman tried olive oil popcorn at the sample booth. Olives are not a RantWoman favorite so she tends to leave them for people she knows really love them. Although RantWoman likes olive oil fine for many things, olive oil on popcorn is not one of them. In fact, RantWoman would be more likely to do, say, tamari, garlic, and nutritional yeast, one of those combos she usually reserves for when she really needs a sentimental journey to previous decades' food fixations.

Once again while making her purchases, Rantwoman groused about the non-tactile devices. This time the ever-so-helpful clerk pointed RantWoman "over there" and "over there" to two checkstands that, the clerk said, just got tactile devices. RantWoman will thank them with "it's about darn time"--as soon as she can figure out where "over there" is for next time.

Next stop, Safeway, according to Lost in Seattle , the brown one. The Madison St. Safeway is "the brown one" because in contract to he endlessly white one near RantMom, this one has brown floors, general vast brownness, brownness sufficient easily to lose a friend of RantWoman's who sometimes accompanies her and frequently wears a brown tweed trench coat. RantWoman shopped up and down, pointedly ignored the rant opportunities presented by black lettering on red background, decided to go elsewhere for one item, and headed for the checkout. RantWoman knows there are one or two checkstands that have lovely tactile devices. RantWoman suspects these checkstands may be highlighted by special lights or signs, though she wonders how the heck RantWoman is supposed to locate them. RantWoman settle for the first express line she found and once again got her nose right up to the device. The last straw was when RantWoman was poking through the transaction on a flat-screen point of sale gizmo. RantWoman practically had to use her nose. RantWoman almost lost it when prompted with an extra question as she was paying: did she want to make a donation to services for people with disabilities. HELL NO, not on such an inaccessible device!