When I’m out with Deaf friends, I
put my hearing aid in my purse. It removes any ability to hear, but
far more importantly, it removes the ambiguity that often haunts me.
In a restaurant, we point to the menu and gesture with the wait
staff. The servers taking the order respond with gestures too. They
pantomime “drinks?” and tell us they learned a bit of signs in
kindergarten. Looking a little embarrassed, they sign “Rain, rain,
go away, come again another day” in the middle of asking our salad
dressing choice. We smile and gently redirect them to the menu. My
friends are pros at this routine and ordering is easy ― delightful
even. The contrast with how it feels to be out with my hearing
husband is stunning.
Once my friends and I have ordered, we sign up a storm, talking
about everything and shy about nothing. What would be the point?
People are staring anyway. Our language is lavish, our faces alive.
My friends discuss the food, but for me, the food is unimportant. I’m
feasting on the smorgasbord of communication ― the luxury of
chatting in a language that I not only understand 100% but that is a
pleasure in and of itself. Taking nothing for granted, I bask in it
all, and everything goes swimmingly.
Until I accidentally say the word “soup” out loud.
Pointing at the menu, I let the word slip out to the server. And
our delightful meal goes straight downhill. Suddenly, the wait
staff’s mouths start flapping; the beautiful, reaching, visual
parts of their brains go dead, as if switched off.
“Whadda payu dictorom danu?” the server’s mouth seems to
say. “Buddica taluca mariney?”
“No, I’m Deaf,” I say. A friend taps the server
and, pointing to her coffee, pantomimes milking a cow. But the damage
is done. The server has moved to stand next to me and, with
laser-focus, looks only at me. Her pen at the ready, her mouth moves
like a fish. With stunning speed, the beauty of the previous
interactions ― the pantomiming, the pointing, the cooperative
taking of our order ― has disappeared. “Duwanaa disser wida
coffee anmik? Or widabeeaw fayuh-mow?”
Austin “Awti” Andrews (who’s a
child of Deaf adults, often written as CODA) describes
a similar situation.
“Everything was going so well,” he says. “The waiter was
gesturing, it was terrific. And then I just said one word, and pow!!
It’s like a bullet of stupidity shot straight into the waiter’s
head,” he explains by signing a bullet in slow motion, zipping
through the air and hitting the waiter’s forehead. Powwwww.
Hearing people might be shocked by this, but Deaf people laugh
uproariously, cathartically.
“Damn! All I did was say one word!” I say to my friends. “But
why do you do that?” they ask, looking at me with consternation and
pity. “Why don’t you just turn your voice off, for once
and for all?” they say.
Hearing people would probably think I’m the lucky one ―
the success story ― because I can talk. But I agree with my
friends.
