This Is Really True

I have a friend who is "hard of hearing" or perhaps, in certain instances she is "deaf" and depending on the further circumstances, she is sometimes "big D Deaf" and sometimes she's "little D deaf".

I can easily identify with her because I'm totally blind in many environments and then in other situations I have a vague visual sense of my surroundings and I never know from moment to moment what will happen.

My hard of hearing friend who is sometimes one or two kinds of deaf is adept at using American Sign Language and sometimes she uses "real time captioning" or special hearing aids.

One thing she never uses is the telephone.

If people leave messages on her office phone she doesn't know it. She has a message that says "don't leave a message because I can't hear" but people do it anyway.

I got to wondering this morning if these people who leave my friend messages on the answering machine are the same people who put the Braille on drive up bank machines?

I suppose they're also the same people who say, when I ask for directions, "over there" and point.

And these people water their lawns, even in the rain.

I can sort of understand how people who want to give me directions will say, out of habit, "over there" and point with habituation. This is an ingrained habit.

But who leaves a voice message on an answering machine when the greeting says, "I can't hear so please send me an e-mail"?

Do they say things like: "Oh, can't hear me huh?  Well good, let me tell you where I stashed the keys to my husband's Jaguar now that I'm leaving him.  They're under an industrial wheat threshing machine just north of Ottumwa."

Or maybe they say: "I'm the Empress Alexandra and I've been living for 70 years inside a replica of an 18th century British warship, eating hardtack in a scullery closet."

I don't know.

I do know that leaving a voice mail message for someone who has identified herself as big or little d deaf is like sewing seed after the Romans have marched through your country.

It's like painting a battleship with a jeweler's brush.

It's like the thing I do when I walk into a room and talk to empty space because I don't know that the person I'm looking for has left.  I just talk.  And when I figure out that there's no one there I say, "And don't you forget it."

But at least I can claim ignorance.

Leaving a voice message for someone who tells you the enterprise is pointless is totally weird.

I'd say the act is "passive aggressive" but it's too stupid to be passive aggression.  The act is "sub-Cartesian" by which I mean:" If I don't think, maybe I don't really exist."

"Nuff said?

S.K.

Comments

[blue girl]

How 'bout this?

They're not listening.

They're only concerned about what they're going to say. Which is ironic, because no one's gonna hear 'em.

As usual, I love the way you write and how you make your points.

This is a little off topic...but, you know what I hate? I hate when I take the time to write a memo, giving everyone involved in whatever project we're all working on every itty bitty piece of information they could possibly need to get their job done.

And then, they ALL call me to ask me questions about the project, making it extremely evident they didn't bother to read what I took the time to write.

You know what I'm going to do?

Put this:

"I'm the Empress Alexandra and I've been living for 70 years inside a replica of an 18th century British warship, eating hardtack in a scullery closet."

in the middle of every memo I write from now on.

lol.

[wheelchairdancer]

It's not the same thing, but we have voicemail on our landline. The greeting says,

"Please don't leave a message as we don't pick up our voice mail here. Really, that means you."

Like to guess how many people leave messages?