Monthly Archive for April, 2004

I’m trying to remember the funniest things I’ve done by accident that are connected to my deafness.

1] The Burglar Alarm Incident
Some friends went out of town on vacation for a week and asked me to housesit for them. Before they left, the wife told me the door code for the alarm system. No problem. So I went to the house, let myself in, punched in the code, and made my way to the kitchen. There was a nice note on the refrigerator door saying, “Please help yourself to any food in the fridge.” Well, I had just gotten off work and was hungry, so I appreciated this, and proceeded to fix myself a nice sandwich. I poured myself a glass of iced sweet tea to go with it and got comfortable at the kitchen table with my food and a magazine.

Just as I lifted the sandwich to my mouth, out of the corner of my eye I detected movement and turned to see two police officers with guns pointed at me. “Put down the sandwich!” one of them said to me. I sat there frozen and very confused. The cop started yelling at me, “What’s your problem? Can’t you hear that?”

To which I replied simply, “No, I’m deaf.”

They looked at each other and went, “huh?”

As it turns out, the husband changed the alarm code the day after his wife told me the code … and she forgot to tell me. So basically, the alarm was blaring and putting the neighbors through excruciating, ear-bleeding pain while I was oblivious to it and proceeded to sit down and enjoy my sandwich.

Fortunately, phone calls to the alarm company and the owners of the house (also, one of the neighbors recognized me and verified my identity) cleared the whole thing up and the very embarrassed police officers apologized profusely.

2] Cruel Practical Jokes on the Deaf
My freshman year of college, I lived in the dorm. Dorms have a lot of fire drills. The resident director was constantly reminding everyone, “Now, the girl in Room 120 is deaf. Please make sure you get her out of her room.” One night at 3 AM, I was woken up by the flashing light hooked up to a doorbell outside my room, and my floormates told me there was a fire drill going on and we had to hurry up. I sleepily followed them outside, and then the wenches closed the door behind me and locked me out. They faked the fucking fire drill. Bitches.

3] The Other Alarm Incident
I spent the night at a friend’s house when I was about 13 and woke up in the middle of the night really thirsty, so I decided to go downstairs and get a glass of water. I tiptoed down the stairs reallllly carefully, got my water, and headed back upstairs to bed, and just as I reached the landing, I looked up and saw the barrel of a shotgun pointed right at my face. Whuh?

As it turns out, the stairs had a special alarm system in it that was triggered by weight – ie, if you stepped on the stairs, you set off the alarm. Gee, thanks for telling me! I apparently woke up the entire house and scared the shit out of them, and then got to stare down the barrel of a shotgun as a reward.

Then there have been the numerous car alarms I’ve set off, and the time I went driving around town with the car alarm blaring … yup, deaf people and alarms don’t go together very well.

4] Deaf and Loud
My college dormitory was an old building with bad plumbing – everytime the toilets were flushed, it used up the cold water, and if one was in the shower, they would get burned with scalding hot water. So we had a system where if we used the toilet when someone was in the shower, we had to yell “FLUSH!” so the person in the shower could step out of the way. Since I was the only deaf person on the floor, the resident assistant nailed a hook on the bathroom door and made a red sign for me to hang on the hook when I was in the shower – this signalled to others that I was in the shower, and people would flash the bathroom lights on and off to signal that the toilet was being flushed since I couldn’t hear the “FLUSH!” warnings. Anyway, since I’m deaf, you see, I don’t know how loud is loud enough, so I’m thinking, “The showers are running. That must be kind of noisy. Perhaps I should yell really loud to be on the safe side. I don’t want anyone to not hear me and get burned.” So, with 3 people in the showers, at 6 AM, I screamed at the top of my lungs, “FLUUUUUUUUSH!” and walked out of the bathroom, feeling satisfied that I had done a Good Deed and saved people from being burned. As I walked down the hall, I was greeted by numerous sleepy, hair-unkempt, disheveled, and PISSED OFF faces peering out of their doors and glaring at me. I didn’t understand what was going on. When I got back to my room, my roommate was sitting up in bed looking at me with one eye open, her hair standing up wildly in all directions, and her nostrils were flaring like an angry bull. She said, “You are one loud fucking bitch. Do that again and I will kill you.” Ooooooooops. I guess I was too loud!

5] Why deaf people shouldn’t play football.
In high school, we had an annual event called Powder Puff football where the junior and senior girls would play football against each other and the guys would dress up as cheerleaders and cheer us on. Anyway, I played both my junior and senior year – it was quite fun.

Since I was athletic and played pretty rough, the coach decided to make me a blocker as I wasn’t scared to jump in there and bust people up. It was pretty easy – the girl I was blocking was usually a sissy and would just wave her hands in the air and get the fuck out of my way.

One day during practice, I was lined up, psyched, and ready to go. Out the corner of my eye, I saw the ball get passed to the quarterback, which was my cue, and I charged forward. But for some reason, the coach blew the whistle and cancelled the play. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear the whistle and just kept going, and the girl I was blocking started running away, and I thought she was trying to chase down one of my teammates, so I started chasing her so I could tackle her. So there’s this chick scared of me running down the field screaming “MAKE HER STOP SOMEONE TURN HER OFF HELP GODDAMNIT HELP” and I’m charging down the field after her doing what I thought I was supposed to do, and meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, there’s 3 other girls hot on my tail trying to catch me and stop me. They managed to catch me, pick me up, carry me off the field, and explain to me that the play was cancelled before I had the opportunity to grind the other girl in the turf.

6] Lipreading fun with Crabs
Some friends returned from a trip to Africa, and we all went out for some beers to celebrate. They talked about their trip in much detail, but since there was a group of us, the conversations drifted around. I went back and forth between watching my traveling friends recount their African adventures and talking with other people at the table.

At one point, I had been engrossed in a conversation with the person next to me, and looked back at Eric just in time to see him say:

“…and so, when we were in Kenya, we had crabs.”

I completely misread the context of that statement. I put two and two together: Africa and crabs. I blurted out, “Oh shit! You had CRABS? I hear those things itch like a motherfucker!!!”

Silence at the table. Everyone’s looking at me with shocked looks on their faces. What did I do wrong? Uh oh.

Finally Gabe realizes what happened, and says, “No, not those kind of crabs – (while making scratching motions at his crotch) – the kind of crabs you eat.”

Me: “Ohhhhhh!” (feeling stupid)

All of us: *peeing in our pants laughing*

So now everytime we see each other, we make scratching motions at our crotches and burst out laughing.

This is all I can remember right now. I’ll add more as I remember (or do) more.