I Had The Right To Remain Silent…At Least I Think I Did…

Some things just don’t happen every day: You finding $100 in your wallet, Tom Hanks personally requesting you to co-star with him in his next Oscar-worthy movie, or your being arrested and formally charged with a DUI when you don’t even drink. Sure, a couple of those things would be wonderful to happen, but handcuffs and police stations make watching Joan Rivers’ face more appealing.

A few weeks ago, I started the day like any other. After getting everyone ready for school and forcing them to eat some breakfast whether they were hungry or not, I set off to drop my kids at their wonderful charter school. On my way home, I became parched and decided to stop at a near-by gas station to get one of my guilty pleasures of sweetened iced tea.

However, starting to pull out of the parking lot, I became distracted and very gently bumped the back bumper of the car in front of me.  With absolutely no damage whatsoever, the guy in that car insisted on having the police come to make a report. I think that was because he felt awkward dealing with a deafie and also I was acting slightly inebriated since I can’t lipread and they didn’t even understand that I was Deaf in the first place.

When the police did finally arrive at the scene, I got out of my van and started staggering around. I simply couldn’t stand up straight. I get this way when standing after sitting for a while. But it sure didn’t look like I was experiencing momentary dizziness to everyone around me! In fact, I’m sure I looked completely dead-on drunk!

Then, the officer approached me and started asking me questions. I must have informed him that I was completely deaf a million times. I also told him I couldn’t lipread and had no idea what he was saying. He pondered this for about two seconds, and then continued talking to me in exactly the same manner as before. Ugh!

I took the Breathalyzer test, which showed 0 alcohol in my body, but even that didn’t seem to matter much. I believe he read me my rights as he handcuffed me, put me in his car, and took me to jail, but there’s no way I could have understood him. Nothing was written down for me and no interpreter was present. Is that even legal? Doesn’t the rights he probably read me include a, “Do you understand these rights,” at the end? Because if he did read them to me, I surely didn’t understand. In fact, that entirely morning/experience, left me understanding absolutely nothing!

I could go on and on about what happened that day, but with a case of severe memory loss and the fact that they had me in custody for hours and hours before an interpreter showed up at the jail, (meaning I was confused and completely ignorant to anything anyone said), it wouldn’t be extremely informative.

But here I am, charged with a DUI when I don’t even drink or do drugs. They’ve even informed me that I could be facing thousands of dollars in fines and jail time to serve if convicted!

I arrived at my first court appearance and, again, there was no interpreter scheduled. We all had to wait around for more than an hour, after informing the clerk of my ‘terp needs, for one to even show up. Grrrrr…… And now they’re waiting for my blood labs to be done and reported (they did a blood/alcohol test, which will unquestionably come back as 0). Then they want to see me in court again. My hope, of course, is that they’ll dismiss the charges and leave me alone. And they’d better remember to schedule a ‘terp this time around.

So, as you can see, being Deaf and working with the police, especially if they don’t comprehend what special needs a Deaf person might have, is nothing but a big pain in the butt! Maybe this all has a reason though. Didn’t someone once say that everything happens for a reason? Maybe this is all a way of insisting I stop drinking copious amounts of sweetened tea. When you think about it, if I’d never stopped for my guilty pleasure, I would have simply gone home and enjoyed the rest of the day.

Let’s just hope that all of this takes care of itself as quickly as possible. I don’t experience worry and stress all that well. 

QUESTIONS, STUPIDITY, AND ANSWERS

Oh, the questions I’ve been asked! In the course of lifetime (which is longer than I’d like to admit), I’ve been asked some doozies. On the happenstance that you’d like to hear a few, I decided to write down the questions I’ve been asked in the past couple of weeks:

• How do deaf people drive?

Exactly the same way hearing people do. You don’t need sound to drive. If that were a fact, then what about hearing people who crank the radio up to blasting or people who chat endlessly on their cell phone? The only thing you really use sound for regularly is sirens and such. But that’s why they also have flashing lights. Hello? A good driver, deaf or hearing, uses his mirrors and stays visually alert. Sound is not a requirement.

• How do deaf people have sex?

Ummm. Would you like a video blog answer to this question?

Or, as comedian and CODA Keith Wann would answer, “The same way hearing people do—loud and sloppy.”

• How do deaf people talk/communicate?

As diversely as the rest of the population. Some of us sign. Some of us lipread and speak. Some of us stand on our heads and blink in Morse Code. Many of us do snappy variations!

• How do deaf people read?

Huh? We go through the same school system as everyone else. We learn to read—given the school system does their job—just like everyone else. But because some deaf children are denied access to a language before they start school (meaning they’re forced to figure out how to speak and “listen” when they can’t hear anything, instead of allowing them to express themselves manually in sign and then be taught English later), they can struggle with reading English.Wouldn't anyone??

Just like hearing people, there are deaf people who are English scholars, deaf people who just read well, and illiterate deafies. But, in general, how do we read? With our eyes and our brain.

• How do deaf people hear music?

Who says we do? There’s absolutely no way of answering that, because it all depends on how much residual (or amplified) hearing a person has as well as their personal likes and dislikes. It’s kind of common sense, here, folks.

• How do deaf people talk on the phone?

Actually, I don’t consider this a stupid question.

There are several different devices for deaf and hard of hearing people to use in order to use a phone. There are amplified telephones, amplifiers to attach to telephones, captioned phones, TTYs/TDDs, videophones, relay systems, etc. Lots of choices. I won’t go into details in this post, but we have a lot of assistive technology in this realm.

• How do deaf people wake up?

Again, not a stupid question, but I find it hard to answer when it’s phrased “how do deaf people…”, as if there is only one way all deaf people do something. We’re as much individuals as hearing people. There is no “one size fits all.”

Many deaf use vibrating or light-flashing alarm clocks that shake the bed and blink a lamp when it’s time to get up. But that’s just one way.

• How do deaf people clap?

Oh, come on! I guess I can read this one of two ways: How do we put our hands together and produce the same sound as hearing people do or how do we applaud something we wish to acknowledge (like a really great play or performance).

For the former? Get a life.

For the latter? Deaf applause consists of lifting your hands above your head and shaking them. The reason for this is that it’s more visual. It’s customary for people (regardless of hearing status) to clap for a hearing person’s performance and use Deaf applause for a deaf person’s performance. It all depends on the applauder and the applaudee (is that even a word?).

• How do deaf people have their own thoughts?

Wow. I don’t know. I mean, do we??? (That was sarcasm.) I’m thinking (praying) that I must have “heard” them wrong. Let’s try again (and hope it’s what they meant)….

• How do deaf people hear their own thoughts?

OK. A little better. If a person is born profoundly deaf and has never been able to hear the spoken word in any way, shape, or form, then chances are they don’t hear it, per se, as it would be spoken. How in the world would they even know what it sounds like?

However, that being said, we "hear" our thoughts very clearly. We are able to think our own thoughts and understand what we mean. We’re not imbeciles! How a person “hears” something is individualistic. You’re probably thinking like a hearie and trying to imagine how a deaf person would hear like you. You have to try to think outside the box.

In fact, in this world, when trying to figure out how people different from you can do certain things, you will always have to think outside the box. You have to stop thinking people must do things in the same fashion as you or other people you know. We’re humans. We’re different. And we do different things differently.

• How do deaf people hear in their dreams?

This is another question of which I’ve been asked many variations. Some want to know if we hear in our dreams or if we sign in our dreams or this or that. Although I’ve never hooked up a brainwave machine to a bunch of deafies to compare, it would seem (ahem) logical that a person would communicate in their dreams in much the same way as they communicate when they’re awake.

• How do deaf people laugh?

Laughter is a reflex action—not a planned and carefully performed parlor trick. When we see/read/are told something funny, we laugh. How is that hard to understand?

Also, everyone in this world has their own sound when they laugh. Some snort, some guffaw, some giggle, some slobber…you get the idea. So, too, does every deaf person have their own sound when they laugh. I’ve had people talk about how “horrible” deaf people sound when they laugh (I’ve even seen stupid comments about how “hysterical” deaf people sound when they’re having sex). Horrible in whose opinion? Some snot-nosed, cocky jerk, who believes he has the ear of God in deciding what sounds appropriate and what doesn’t? Hmmm. I think it may be vaguely obvious I have an opinion about that.

• How do deaf people write?

I will answer that question with an impervious retort…. Although some can’t write at all (just like many hearies), some of us (Me! Me! Me! Me!) write extremely well. And there is no question about that.