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Me and Maxine captivated a classroom of students and teachers at a school here in Juneau, Alaska. All Maxine did to win the admiration of the whole room was to sit quietly on the floor—she even got away with eight yawns! I, on the other hand, needed to actually work to earn the audience’s respect by carefully balancing colorful stories about my life as a law-school-bound college student who was blind and Eritrean, with educational facts about guide dogs. Seven minutes was all I needed to introduce Maxine, myself, and the basics of traveling with a guide dog, but the students fired out so many entertaining questions that we stayed in that room for an additional forty minutes. Perhaps it was rude of me, but some of those questions made me laugh.

Q: Can Maxine go everywhere?

A: Yes, absolutely! Everywhere most people can go, she can go. Restaurants, planes, buses, you name it. There are some exceptions, like someone’s private house, but generally she can go anywhere.

Q: Can she go to the swimming pool?

A: /Laughing./ You mean IN THE POOL??

Q: Yes.

A: /Laughing./ Nooo!

Q: What happens if Maxine goes blind?

A: We take her to the vet a few times a year, so the vet would notice if she develops any eye diseases. If she does, then she will have to stop being a guide dog and would turn into a pet.

Q: But what if she goes blind overnight?

A: That would be interesting! She would probably act confused and bump into things in the morning, so I’d notice that something was wrong and immediately take her to the vet.

Q: Do you ever crash into other people?

A: A few times, but everyone makes mistakes and bumps into things now and then.

Q: Do you have blind friends?

A: Yes. I also have sighted friends, and deaf friends, and hearing friends, and black friends, and white friends.

Q: What would happen if Maxine ate candy?

A: She should not pick up stuff from the floor, and she knows it. Sometimes she does, though, and I correct her. She’s eaten candy before, and she’s still alive…

Answering such creative questions for almost an hour was incredibly fun! I promised myself not to disrespect anyone’s question—no question is stupid, right?—but I really couldn’t help laughing at some of them. The randomness of some of the questions makes me marvel at how the ten-year-old mind works. They were conjuring every bizarre scenario that might befall a guide dog and asking me what in heaven I would do if ever this highly unlikely event were to occur—like what if Maxine goes blind, what if Maxine gets lost, what if you and Maxine get attacked? The air practically sizzled with all those neurons busily constructing imaginative scenarios to throw before my feet, and Maxine’s paws.

In some ways, I delighted in the challenge of showing respect to the uninhibited curiosity of those little kids. Thriving at a Q&A session with a policy of “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” is really an art, a skill one has to fine-tune through practice. If I dare say so, I quite excel at this art.

She squirmed a little and switched positions a bunch; at one point her energetic scratching caused her harness to jingle and made the kids giggle. One student finally braved the question that they had all been dying to ask, “Can I pet Maxine?” When ten sixth graders surrounded the little shepherd to pet various parts of her smooth coat, Maxine just stretched out and sighed like the little princess she was.

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