My First Venture in a Mime’s World
written by: Craig E Harms
In 1969, the Rolling Stones released “Let it Bleed.” The album’s inner sleeve was stamped: “This record is meant to be played loud.” Being a fifteen-year-old rocker and budding malcontent, I did as my scraggly idols suggested … and carried out the practice to most other tunes played after that. Twenty years later, I was a radio disc jockey–this rocker and now fully developed malcontent spun tunes from six til midnight … loud.
On the morning of August 11, 2011, I woke up with perfect 20/20 deafness.
My wife and I live a block from the Mississippi River; unfortunately freight trains also rumble through town a block from the Mississippi River about every fifteen minutes. Cursing the shrill blast of the warning horn was not uncommon, as I loathed being drowned out in sound and mind. On this day, I knew my world had flipped when I stepped out that morning to fetch the morning newspaper, and the passing freight train was as noisy as a breeze. Nothing. Nada, but for the vibrations I now felt under my feet. When I went to vacuum a few hours later, I realized I had to suck the wand to my skin and place my palm on the canister to feel the vibrating motor to see if it was working. That night, I had to make my first disability adjustment: spotlighting the toilet bowl with a flashlight to make sure I wasn’t urinating on the cat, the wall, the rug … I couldn’t hear the tinkling when I peed, you see. An audiologist, a couple of days later, ran the tests with a diagnosis as dead cochlear hairs–the tiny antennae in our inner ears that allow vibrations to become sounds. The loss would be permanent. Life from here on out was going to be a silent bitch–would take the fun out of people.
I became a hermit in my own home. My wife mouthed words that meant nothing. Living life inside a movie before talkies. I discovered TV’s closed captioning, which takes up a lot of brain power trying to match the written dialogue with the picture. It took me five months to gather up the courage to make my first shopping venture, and when I did, I felt for the first time in life, but not the last, the deep sting of “being different.” Less than. Broken.
Trying her damnedest that I didn’t go the way of booze or powders or other addictive pain removers, she took me to HOBBY LOBBY for art supplies. Walking into the crafts store was scary and tentative, but I got along fine—at first—filling the cart with canvases, brushes, and tubes of color–until I asked an associate for assistance.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I bellowed loud enough for the entire store to hear because deaf people talk without volume control because they can’t hear themselves: “Can you please help me?” She approached me without saying a word, at least I didn’t see her lips move. So far, so good. “Can you tell me where the glazing medium is for oils?”
She started yakking right off the bat–I gave her a hard-to-admit “I’m deaf” heads-up and handed her the little notebook I brought along–but she just kept yakking. About something … (My main “being deaf” pet peeve). “Sorry, you’ll have to write it down.”
What’s a glazing medium? for oil? she scribbled, looking a little bit put-out.
“It helps thin and manipulate the paint,” I replied, giving everyone in the store an art lesson. “They’re little bottles of clear liquid.” The HOBBY LOBBY associate turned her back and pointed up and off to the left (people pointing would become my second biggest “being deaf” pet peeve). “Sorry, you’ll have to write it down.”
She grabbed the notebook a little brusquely and wrote barely legible: “never heard of it, but try isle 4–bottom lower shelf on the left. might be their.”
“Thanks. Now if you could show me where your stretcher frame bars are, I’ll–”
I stood as if he had been dipped in a vat of plaster of Paris after the associate handed me back the notebook in a huff, mouthed something unpleasant I assumed by her grimace, turned away, and high-tailed it back up towards the registers, leaving me embarrassed, confused, and angry. When I told my wife about how I was rudely blown off, she complained to the manager, who sided with his associate. When I sent a certified letter registering a complaint to the company CEO, Dennis Green (my first, but not last, penned response to devastating treatment), it went unanswered. I am a white, married American heterosexual male. Never felt the sting of discrimination before. Was this my life to be?
It would take me several more months before venturing out again into the traumatizing world. I discovered that you don’t have to be an enemy target in a far-off land to get shell-shocked. I still boycott HOBBY LOBBY–a decade and a half later, and still feel the pangs of PTSD whenever we pass the building.
But in a decade and a half, I have accepted and adjusted to my change, and we’ve become advocates for others like me: getting company websites to CC their online videos so that the hard-of-hearing community can gather the same information that hearing folks gather. Working with our local mental health department to have options for the hearing impaired, rather than a phone number, so they can reach out in times of mental meltdowns, because we can’t call. We asked Apple to kindly CC their annual live presentations because we deafers use their products, too–just on mute–they did and now also provide an ASL translator! (In return, the communications conglomerate sent me a free watch and a kind email from CEO, Tim Cook). We snorkel in the Caribbean, which is a great equalizer because everybody’s deaf underwater. Got a cochlear implant, which helps some, although sounds are electronic and inauthentic. And, on my 70th birthday, I saw the Rolling Stones in concert (played loud, I assumed), although the show was as quiet as a church basement at midnight.
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