Wednesday, June 08, 2005 She threw several things, including a pencil
Today a lady at work screamed and threw things, because there was some confusion about the day of her appointment. If I hadn't gone out last night, knowing that I wouldn't be on top of my reception game today and not really caring at all, I might have become upset. As it was, I was all empathy, like, "Oh, wow. She must be really frustrated. I am a total chump. Here, lady, throw shit around some more." The woman was deaf. She yelled and threw. I wrote notes on tiny scraps of paper.
I took a sign language class in highschool, but I don't remember much. Right now, I only reliably know one sign language gesture, other than certain gestures that are fairly widespread.
There was a sign language interpreter at my college graduation, and because I went to college when I did, the student speaker's talk wouldn't have been complete without recurring mentions of terrorism and related topics. I zoned out, for that is what I do. I listened to my classmates pass around liquor bottles and drop them on the floor before we'd even walked, because I went to the University of Partying Down. I watched this interpreter, and tried to see if she was using any signs I recognized. She wasn't, really. I did notice one unusal set of motions that seemed to keep coming up.
She raised the first two fingers of her left hand together, and then made her right hand into a surf's up kind of shape, with the thumb and pinky extended, and the rest of the fingers balled towards the palm. She held up the hand with two fingers and struck them with her right hand.
In an instant, I realized what she was trying to say, and then my drunk-ass fellow almost grads gave me dirty looks as I tried to choke back laughter that seemed to be prompted by the student speaker saying, "The Tragic Events of September 11th."
I hate it when you think of the perfect thing to say to someone, hours after the fact. posted by Frenz | 6/08/2005 10:04:00 PM
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