A loan shark. Well not really.

So, my husband and I were talking about miscommunication through misheard comments. 

Seems one time he was at work talking with a guy who was getting ready to get married. The guy starts talking about his future father-in-law and his line of work. 

Husband hears, "He's a loan shark." And responds, "Wow, don't borrow money from him." 

Crickets start chirping. People look at him strangely. He says, "Not a loan shark?" 
His friend says, "No. A longshoreman."

Would it be as funny if it wasn't true? It's true though.

Campbell's Soup Kama Sutra

One of my most embarrassing hearing mistakes so far happened when I was working as a book clerk at Media Play years ago.

A woman and her teenage daughter came in when it was almost closing time. So, the book department was pretty much empty except for my ride home. The woman approached me at the desk and at the time we had a pocket size guide to sexual health that some company was pushing for the holidays on the counter. She glanced at the book and then asked me for what I thought was the Kama Sutra. I was thinking, "Wow. She must have some open relationship with her daughter if she can look at a book like that with her in tow."

I didn't repeat the title like I usually did. I just walked her over to the section and pointed out where the Kama Sutra books were. She looked at me blushing and puzzled. It dawned on me. I said, "That wasn't what you asked for, was it?"

"No. The Campbell's Soup book. The cookbook."

I was thoroughly embarrassed. At least she wasn't totally offended and I knew where the book was that she wanted. So, she walked out a satisfied if slightly embarrassed customer. And I lucked out that she wasn't offended enough to complain to management about my showing her and her daughter books on sexual health when all she wanted was as cookbook.

After that I learned to repeat back whatever title people gave me before I showed them the book or search results. Didn't totally stop mistakes, but it lessened the really embarrassing ones.

3 Hearing Impaired Women...

3 Hearing impaired women were sitting on a bench.

The first one said, "It's windy today."

The second one said, "Today's Thursday."

The third one said, "I'm thirsty too. Let's go get a drink."

This joke has been around for a while. And while it's funny, it is also a great illustration of the realities and frustrations of communication among and with the hearing impaired.

Captioning

Closed Captions are incredibly important to me.

Without captions, I just can't really enjoy watching a tv program or a movie. I wonder what dialogue I've missed even when I can follow the action and plot. After a few minutes, if that long, I usually give up. I've found I give up even if it is a movie or a program that I remember from when I still had some hearing. I just don't enjoy it.

And it goes beyond a matter of enjoyment. Sometimes it is a matter of critical information.

When watching tv and a news alert, a weather alert, or an amber alert comes across the screen, I want to know what's going on. Sometimes more information follows along the bottom of the screen or the programming is interrupted. Sometimes the interruptions are captioned; sometimes they're not. In the case of amber alerts, I was complaining about the lack of information to someone when they informed me that the rest of the information that I felt was lacking was spoken only and wasn't written or captioned. So, I guess it was only important for the hearing portion of the population?

And it's not easy or practical to try and speechread totally during a tv program or movie because of camera angles and people speaking off camera or obscured. And "the best estimates are that 30% to 35% of English sounds can be speechread under the best circumstances." http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/articles/speechreading.htm But, that's only around 30% and the article goes on to mention that only about 23% of hearing impaired adults become effective speech readers.

So that leaves the majority of Deaf and Hard of Hearing with a necessity for captioning for enjoyment and understanding of programming on television and the internet.

That can really be hard for a hearing person to understand. I know it used to be for me. But, try watching tv programs or movies without the sound and without captions. You'll find yourself straining to understand what's going on. And how much you enjoy the movie, even one you've been looking forward to, goes down. Then, you start to understand how important captions are for people who can't turn the sound back up or on.