98% of my time I spend in a hearing world. When a hearie talks to me, I tell him/her "I'm sorry, I can't hear you. I am deaf". I usually try to communicate with him/her in body language and sometimes lipreading.
Most of time it happens to me while I'm in the elevator at work. I work in a professional enviroment and I usually deal with engineers, urban/transportation planners, and sometimes customers & attorneys.
It's no way for me to show them my middle finger!!! If I did, I would get fired!
-madmax