Deaf Social Night

One of the things that we opted to do was a Deaf Social Night when Mikkel was in town. I was impressed that both Marc and Mikkel would want to try this difficult feat with their limited signing abilities. As we were there I was so impressed by the patience of those around us. There was a man there that was so patient in communicating with Marc and Mikkel. He would sign something and they would look puzzled and then he would fingerspell each sign until they understood what he was asking. It took FOREVER for them to communicate and this man never lost his patience once with them and kept commending them for their efforts. I love this group that I get to meet with! However, I didn’t love the service that night. This was the first time that I have ever really experienced discrimination of any kind and it was hard on me. The waitress that we had that night seemed to think that the Deaf people were diseased and that the Hearing people sitting close to them were infected. The three of us sat there for 2 hours and they never once asked for our order. If a hearing person and a Deaf person asked for something at the same time then the hearing person’s food would be delivered but it was a long wait for the Deaf person. It took 45 minutes to have ketchup brought to our table because a Deaf person ordered it and one pizza never showed up after a 2 hour wait. It was ridiculous and it left the Deaf community swearing that they wouldn’t come back to this restaurant again. It had the same affect in my family. Marc said that he can’t support a business that is willing to discriminate like that and that we will find another restaurant to eat at. A complaint was filed with the manager and I don’t know what will happen. It made me so sad to see this happen but it was a good experience to see that flip-flop island happens in real life too. The three of us were determined to have a good night and after trying another few restaurants found an awesome Mexican restaurant and enjoyed the rest of our night laughing and being silly. Hopefully, next time we go to a social night it won’t be the same as it was tonight!