Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ve been working part-time at my old office job to sustain my crazy eating/drinking/general money-burning habits during the school year. This means I no longer have to show up for law school seminars on topics such as “Put Your Vagina Where Your Mouth Is: Feminist Lawyers Speak Out” just to eat the free pizza and sandwiches, and then slink out the door when no one is looking.

What this also means is that I have to be in an office environment for a good chunk of my time. I’m sure most people have worked at an office at one time or another, and some of those offices may have contained cubicles. I, too, have a cubicle. And I choose to fill it with all sorts of handy things, such as Post-It notes, neon sticky tabs, paperclips, in- and out-trays, and these strange plastic divider thingies that I still don’t understand the exact use for. I just keep taking office supplies and hoard them at my desk like it’s some sort of clerical bomb shelter. Who knows when there’ll be an emergency requiring the unique functionality of a one-hole puncher?

Beside my cubicle is the cubicle of my blind co-worker. You might think I’d be able to get away with more things with a blind person sitting next to me, but she’s always on my ass. “Oh, you’re leaving early today?” “It must be nice to have a coffee break right after you come in for the morning” “So have you found things to work on today?” As any office employee can attest, working in an office should include, at most, only two hours of real, honest-to-goodness work. But with Blindy McBlinderson watching my every move (figuratively, of course), I’m not getting the freedom that the rest of the office seems to enjoy. I get scared when I type a friend an email because I think she’s going to be able to hear what keys I’m pushing. You know how blind people’s senses are heightened. How do I know she’s not just feigning vulnerability by day and Daredevil-ing it by night?

But for reals, she’s nice enough. Very talkative and sometimes funny. I hate to admit it, but I expect people with disabilities to be really awkward and have no sense of humour. I mean, it must be hard to develop a full-bodied personality when you’re missing out on 20% of the world’s sensory experiences—hell, I haven’t even fully developed the other hemisphere of my brain. She does have a strange smell about her, though, like she doesn’t get around to bathing often. Or that could just be my stinking prejudice.