I ask Steve using my lousy and slow signs, “What name man give you new hard drive” I point to the space where his desktop computer use to be. I do not know how to sign hard drive for a computer, so I sign “hard” as in difficult, and “drive” as in driving a car. And people wonder why he gets frustrated when I try to interpret for him in Church.
Steve (who speaks well in English) looks at me like I’m an idiot: “The computer was sold.”
Me: “That not my question”
Steve says his name and fingerspells it as if I can understand his flying fingers.
Me: “He ask me last Sunday if your computer work now. Say yes.” I’m not really sure how to sign “computer”, but Steve seems to understand.
Steve: “I’m looking at the floor. There is no computer there.”
Me (getting frustrated already): “Know!” (meaning, I know).
Steve: “He sold me the hard drive but I sold the computer.”
Me: “He now think you have computer work. He ask me.”
Steve (who is about to laugh): “So what’s your point?”
Me (using signs and fingerspelling): “Have figure how make ‘them’ [which could be he, her, them, or the floor since I'm pointing to the floor] email communicate you directly.” I make the combination sign for ‘I don’t know’ meaning I do not always know the correct answer to people’s questions concerning their business dealings with him.
Steve digs through his pile of business cards that he has received from people, and hands me one that he likes and says, “Make it like this one.” Am I his wife or his secretary? Ah well. This will be good for both of us so it’s worth it to make them, and a good idea. Thanks Mrs. D!
I ask him to email me all of the different ways people can contact him.
He replys with:
1. e mail me at steveshumko@hotmail.com (this is the only contact information he will let me put on the blog).
2. Text message (SMS) my Blackberry
3. E mail for the Blackberry
4. Yahoo Instant Messenger
5. Send a snail mail letter to our home address
6. Deaf Relay
7. Give neighborhood cats a message and the cats will relay it to our cats.
Thats all I can think of right now.
Filed under: Communication Issues
Carrier pigeons I know about, but carrier cats are news to me! Oh, wait, some cats do particpate in the “Twilight Bark” news transmission system used in 101 Dalmations to spread the word about the missing puppies.
Hope the cards work well for you!
MrsD
I added a couple of ways people can contact him that he didn’t think of: my email address and my phone number with a note to leave a message. Oh yeah, and ring the door bell. It makes a light flash in the house that he can see.
I explained to my visiting teacher why I never answer the phone and gave her two examples. One is solicitors, and the other is people who call, ask for Steve, and hang up on me as soon as I tell them he is deaf. It happens. As a hearing person, she zeroed in on the solicitors, saying we all hate them, and gave a few suggestions for reducing those. The “deaf” reason was not mentioned or understood.
Just wanted to say that Julia is right…. As in the case of that man asking about my computer…. I don’t really tell her what I do with every item I sell or fix in detail. In this case, that hard drive the man sold me worked fine, but the rest of my computer was no good.
I did not tell Julia I took this hard drive out of the bad computer, put it in another working computer and sold it.
Sometimes I don’t know what I do with what either.
But the point is the man should have asked me in person about the hard drive. Got to agree with that.
SteveZ
If I was Steve, I would have put the cats above TTY relay as preferred contact. But that’s just me.
Charlene: I am with you on that cats above TTY thing! More dependable than most people those kitties are!
Mrs D: Regarding Carrier Pigeons- Our neighbor kept a coop right next door. Gave it up, and the birds choose to roost right over our front porch overhang. MESSY! They even made a nest and two eggs hatched… I took the babies and and Two captured birds to the animal shelter… you guessed it they were right back “home” in no time at all! (our porch) Finally came up with idea of putting an Plastic Lifelike Owl out there. It worked!
But point is animals and birds SURE are more dependable…..
SteveS