Deaf Village Rocks...

Wow, Deaf Village rocks!! at least the manager at the local fast food restaurant thinks so! So I'm sporting my DV t-shirt today and run inside a fast food rest. to pick up a quick coffee after I dropped B off at preschool. The manager/supervisor taking my order says "so is Deaf Village an actual place where people live or is it a rock band?" It caught me off guard and I smiled running thru the answers in my head to find the quickest (I was then holding up the line!) and an answer that was easy to understand, knowing he likely didn't have a clue as to what blogging is. I came up with "it's a place online where you can read about deaf related issues, that sort of thing...my kids are deaf" I tell him. His eyebrows raised quickly, he began to stutter, "oh, well I think everyone should learn sign language 'cause deaf people come in here all the time and my employees don't have a clue"...he then adds quickly "my daughter loves that show on PBS and is learning sign, all people hearing or not should learn sign" I knew a lot of people in the Deaf Community would have loved to hear that but it was a half hearted comment I know, otherwise he'd teach his employees some basics. I just smiled because he was only telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. I simply said "that's great, my daughter likes that show too, but in general my kids don't sign, they speak"...well I had to move on before people started complaining about the line, and I then closed with "they wear cochlear implants and were able to learn how to speak". He added "oh I've heard about that, they can regrow hair cells and all" and as I walked away, I said "well, we're not that advanced yet...my kids have cochlear implants, like an implantable hearing aid"...I felt like he was enlightened a bit, and was capable of learning more, but that's all I could give him...just goes to show, people don't really know!! But at least he didn't clam up like some people do, he really meant well.