A Trip to the Vice Principal…

We don’t talk much anymore….

For most everyone I know, this is an accurate statement.  I am lonely, but such is the life of the deaf.

I suppose that one of the major reasons is the tedium.  It can be difficult to communicate with a deaf/ hard of hearing individual.  By phone, we are limited to the skills of the captioners and annoyed by the inevitable delay time.

In person, we have challenges presented by our environment:  crowds, noisy restaurants, traffic, they all limit our ability to have a ‘normal’ conversation. But, that’s not entirely fair, many times in a quiet situation, I still have challenges understanding.  When I am honest with myself, I have a hard time accepting the reality… being deaf is an actual handicap.  And while I don’t feel handicapped, I need to understand that the rest of the world can see my limitations.

It seems that the most common response to these factors is to simply avoid conversations.  I’m not describing strangers….this is the norm for those closest to me: friends, co-workers, and college roommates.  Life gets quiet in a hurry.  I would describe it as chronically lonely.  

So in my community, we find ourselves isolated.  Alone in a crowded room.  

And then the pandemic…

Social distancing, don’t approach co-workers, staying away from friends, all necessary but sad consequences. And next…the masks.  Now everyone you encounter is speaking to you from the fast-food drive-thru line.   I can tell you are speaking but…

Well heck-fire!

When I was in high school, I once was sent to the principal’s office for talking too much.  (All my classmates just rolled their eyes.) Clearly this happened more than once, but this one time…

My teacher followed the norm of the time and assigned us seats in alphabetic order.  There was nothing wrong with this except that this seating arrangement put me in proximity to fellow students that I knew well.  And thus, I was called out for talking too much.   

Her solution was to move me out of the seating chart into a seat in the back of the room with an empty row between me and the next nearest classmate.   This lasted approximately two weeks when I was called forward to the teacher’s desk.  In an unnecessarily (but well deserved) loud voice, she explained that the point of separating me from the rest of the class was not to see if I could speak loudly enough to be heard from the back of the room.

My last stop she explained, was to sit directly in front of her desk.  By sitting here, she could keep a close eye on her prized student.  It lasted less than a week.

As she handed me an infraction card to take to the Vice-Principal,  she made it clear to me that her purpose in moving me to the seat in front of her desk was not so I could chat her up non-stop.  So please, she said, present this infraction to the Vice-Principal and don’t bother coming back.  Well, I might or might not have been thrown out of nicer places at that moment, but I have since. 

I tell this story not to cast an evil light upon that educator, but rather to make the point that as a hearing person, I would have been described as ‘verbal’.  Being deaf is a trial and I am still not used to the effects.

So today, I watch the statistics on the news.  I see that everyday more than one million people are receiving the COVID vaccine.   I couldn’t be happier.  Soon we will be able to greet each other with awkward hugs and bore each other with idle chit-chat.  And I promise to read every word off your lips with enthusiasm.  After all,  the purpose of putting me into isolation wasn’t so I would talk to you non-stop…

Thanks for listening!

Your friend,

KBM

Kevin Medlin
kevin@mysilentpew.com