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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/musicwithbarb on 2026-05-28 23:31:50+00:00.

For context, I am completely blind since birth. I am relatively "normal" otherwise. Except when I jam my foot squarely inside my mouth. Also, worth noting,I took a pretty solid edible before this happened. So, I sometimes swim at this pool in our city. It's a therapy pool. So it has a few different levels with steps, and it has several sets of parallel bars that people can use to do exercise. The pool is meant for rehab. But people from the community can come and use the pool in the afternoons. It's beautiful and so relaxing.

So I'm in there today, talking to my husband and sister who are with me. We're having a chill time when, all of a sudden, this woman starts walking back and forth near me. So she's letting me know that she's moving around me. She tells me that she is doing her exercises. Now, what I am good at, normally, is giving people advice and encouragement to keep it up and hey! Maybe you wanna try something fun, maybe a touch more challenging. Just to mix it up a little bit. So I say, proudly because this is obviously the best idea anyone's ever had, "Hey! Youknow what you should do? Have you ever tried walking along the bars but only using your arms? So just grab the bars with both hands and just use them! To walk! It'll be really fun! You should try!"

She responded snippily, "I can't do that!" "Well why not?" I insist? "It's fun! Look! I am blind and I can do it no problem!"

She is clearly pissed when she says I can't do it, because I only have one arm."

Lord, just go ahead and let me drown here at the bottom of the pool, because I can't bear the shame. Everyone I've told this story to, including the woman in question, all said it was fine because I couldn't have known, what with the whole being blind thing. But it is still god damn mortifying! How do you even come back from that?

Well great question. My brilliant plan was to drop a fun etymology fact on her! So I said "Hey! So your name is Celia. Isn't that based on the word for "sky"?

Nope. According to her it absolutely is not. But jokes on her, because I just looked it up and I'm actually right! It means heavenly and will come from the same root as ciel meaning sky. So there, Celia. I do know things! TLDR: A I, a blind woman, told a one armed lady to walk along parallel bars with both of her arms and don't use her legs. Gaaaaaaaaaaa I'm fucking stupid!