Miss-Delectable
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Life: Silly assumptions open door to odd chat at Starbucks | deaf, told, read - Gazette.com
At a Starbucks near my house, I was waiting for my order to be made when a middle-age, white, petite woman with lots of makeup and brown hair tightly wrapped in a bun approached me.
She asked me something and I couldn’t understand her. I told her I was deaf. She reacted as if I had been born without a brain and began talking in slow motion, which didn’t help me read her lips. Her words were becoming blurred into one long word.
“ W h a a a a a t i s s s s s s y o u u u r - rnaaaaaame?”
I asked her to talk normally and after a few tries, she started speaking coherently. I told her my name and we shook hands. Her grip was rather strong for a woman of her size, and a brief mental picture of a Christian dominatrix popped into my skull. “Do you know how to read and write?” she asked me. “No.” For some reason or another, lots of people seem to think being deaf is the same as being Forrest Gump. If it wasn’t someone thinking I was medically stupid, then someone else expected me to randomly quip, “Life is like a box of chocolates.” “You don’t know how to read at all?” “No.” “What do you do for a living?” “I do not work.” She raised both of her painted eye- brows and paused. Like an oldfashioned schoolmarm, she looked at me with a slight tinge of contempt, as if I deserved to be the class dunce.
“Praise be the Lord,” she said. “Maybe we need to get you into an adult’s literacy program so you can learn to read and write.”
“OK.”
“My church has a great program! Perfect! Do you have a car?”
“No.”
“Umm . . . OK, so you must take the bus, then. Are there any churches near where you live?”
“No. I live in an institution of other people like me.”
She nodded slowly, straightened her back and folded her arms across her chest. I noticed her pink fingernails looked professionally done, as did her eyebrows, hair and quite possibly, her breasts. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
“Do you go to church at all?”
“No.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“My Mamma always told me God was the drug of choice for people.”
She smiled and laughed to herself. “Why, yes! God IS a drug for many people! I love that!”
I shrugged before continuing. “My Mamma always told me to listen to Nancy Reagan. Nancy Reagan always told me to say no to drugs. God is a drug. I say no to God.”
She looked at me like she didn’t know what to do or say next. Her right hand went from her breast to her mouth, which was partially open. For a second, silence passed between us.
“How did you get your condition? How did you become deaf?”
“A faith healer made me deaf.”
“What!? No way! Really? You can’t be serious!” I saw cracks forming in the schoolmarm image she projected.
“When I was 5, I was blind,” I continued, “and my Mamma took me to a faith healer and he cured my blindness.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful! Wow! You were both deaf and blind?”
I shook my head. “No. The faith healer made me deaf.”
An awkward silence passed between us (again).
I shrugged at her. “When the faith healer healed my blind eyes, he freaked out and screamed — he blew out the speakers and my eardrums. I am now deaf.”
She remained frozen while her eyes danced wildly around my face. Her mouth would alternately open and close like a fish out of water. I felt a twinge of guilt for making her feel uncomfortable.
“A faith healing gone wild,” I added. She gasped and muttered something I didn’t understand.
“People who go to church are drug addicts.”
She shook her head at me. “That’s not right. I can promise you I’ve never taken a drug in my life! I’m not a drug addict.”
“My Mamma always told me God was opium of the masses. If you believe in God, you are an opium addict.”
She nervously shifted her body weight and her eyes darted from me toward the windows, as if looking outside for help. I wondered if she was asking for divine intervention.
A Starbucks employee announced that her drink was ready and she quickly grabbed it. She hurriedly walked to a table, scribbled something on a napkin and walked back toward me. Giving me the folded napkin — which had her phone number on it — she told me she wanted my Mamma to call her. I politely smiled at her.
I asked her to repeat the numbers out loud and she did. I told her I couldn’t read her name very well because it was not very legible handwriting.
“I thought you couldn’t read?”
“I can only read in Braille,” I told her.
“Actually, I’m in post-graduate school and an atheist. Just so you know, not all deaf people are illiterate children who need salvation. But thank you for your concern . . . and sorry.”
Joshua Dawson is pursuing his doctoral degree in public policy and administration at Walden University online. A part-time writer, Dawson is author of the blog www.Paotie .com. And yes, he really is deaf.
At a Starbucks near my house, I was waiting for my order to be made when a middle-age, white, petite woman with lots of makeup and brown hair tightly wrapped in a bun approached me.
She asked me something and I couldn’t understand her. I told her I was deaf. She reacted as if I had been born without a brain and began talking in slow motion, which didn’t help me read her lips. Her words were becoming blurred into one long word.
“ W h a a a a a t i s s s s s s y o u u u r - rnaaaaaame?”
I asked her to talk normally and after a few tries, she started speaking coherently. I told her my name and we shook hands. Her grip was rather strong for a woman of her size, and a brief mental picture of a Christian dominatrix popped into my skull. “Do you know how to read and write?” she asked me. “No.” For some reason or another, lots of people seem to think being deaf is the same as being Forrest Gump. If it wasn’t someone thinking I was medically stupid, then someone else expected me to randomly quip, “Life is like a box of chocolates.” “You don’t know how to read at all?” “No.” “What do you do for a living?” “I do not work.” She raised both of her painted eye- brows and paused. Like an oldfashioned schoolmarm, she looked at me with a slight tinge of contempt, as if I deserved to be the class dunce.
“Praise be the Lord,” she said. “Maybe we need to get you into an adult’s literacy program so you can learn to read and write.”
“OK.”
“My church has a great program! Perfect! Do you have a car?”
“No.”
“Umm . . . OK, so you must take the bus, then. Are there any churches near where you live?”
“No. I live in an institution of other people like me.”
She nodded slowly, straightened her back and folded her arms across her chest. I noticed her pink fingernails looked professionally done, as did her eyebrows, hair and quite possibly, her breasts. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
“Do you go to church at all?”
“No.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“My Mamma always told me God was the drug of choice for people.”
She smiled and laughed to herself. “Why, yes! God IS a drug for many people! I love that!”
I shrugged before continuing. “My Mamma always told me to listen to Nancy Reagan. Nancy Reagan always told me to say no to drugs. God is a drug. I say no to God.”
She looked at me like she didn’t know what to do or say next. Her right hand went from her breast to her mouth, which was partially open. For a second, silence passed between us.
“How did you get your condition? How did you become deaf?”
“A faith healer made me deaf.”
“What!? No way! Really? You can’t be serious!” I saw cracks forming in the schoolmarm image she projected.
“When I was 5, I was blind,” I continued, “and my Mamma took me to a faith healer and he cured my blindness.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful! Wow! You were both deaf and blind?”
I shook my head. “No. The faith healer made me deaf.”
An awkward silence passed between us (again).
I shrugged at her. “When the faith healer healed my blind eyes, he freaked out and screamed — he blew out the speakers and my eardrums. I am now deaf.”
She remained frozen while her eyes danced wildly around my face. Her mouth would alternately open and close like a fish out of water. I felt a twinge of guilt for making her feel uncomfortable.
“A faith healing gone wild,” I added. She gasped and muttered something I didn’t understand.
“People who go to church are drug addicts.”
She shook her head at me. “That’s not right. I can promise you I’ve never taken a drug in my life! I’m not a drug addict.”
“My Mamma always told me God was opium of the masses. If you believe in God, you are an opium addict.”
She nervously shifted her body weight and her eyes darted from me toward the windows, as if looking outside for help. I wondered if she was asking for divine intervention.
A Starbucks employee announced that her drink was ready and she quickly grabbed it. She hurriedly walked to a table, scribbled something on a napkin and walked back toward me. Giving me the folded napkin — which had her phone number on it — she told me she wanted my Mamma to call her. I politely smiled at her.
I asked her to repeat the numbers out loud and she did. I told her I couldn’t read her name very well because it was not very legible handwriting.
“I thought you couldn’t read?”
“I can only read in Braille,” I told her.
“Actually, I’m in post-graduate school and an atheist. Just so you know, not all deaf people are illiterate children who need salvation. But thank you for your concern . . . and sorry.”
Joshua Dawson is pursuing his doctoral degree in public policy and administration at Walden University online. A part-time writer, Dawson is author of the blog www.Paotie .com. And yes, he really is deaf.
