The Best Grocery Shopping Experience Ever And Other Activities
Shelley J Alongi

 

It was Thursday May 20, and the El Camino Street Fair was looming on the horizon. The whole afternoon and evening would prove to be enlightening, fun, an intense experience (for me anyway), and most of all, another one of those communication breakthroughs that beginning finger spellers like me desperately crave. All week Richard, Orange County Deaf Advocacy�s director and me had communicated online, exchanging grocery lists: a veritable paradise for one like me who loves a good excuse to go grocery shopping. Helping the OCDAC director buy food for a food stand in Tustin California certainly ranked high on my list of good excuses for grocery shopping. We would go to Smart and Final this afternoon and if not buy out the whole store, at least buy out part of it! Ah, yes, the store of my dreams. I had arranged a discount for OCDAC with the local Smart and Final, and needed no urging to accompany my friend and colleague for such a wonderful experience!

�Ready?� he spelled to me as he came in the door.

Now there�s a man of decision: I�m here, let�s go! But I wasn�t quite ready yet so I took him back to the room where supposedly a message on the screen was waiting for him. There was no message. The screen had suffered what I term a serious �disconnect� so after he switched it off and on and moved the contrast and light, I said �reboot� so we did. He gave me a verbal cue that the screen had responded to my command to shut down all systems and restart. It was a go. We dealt with some pumpkin patch issues and then we were ready. We went down the stairs and came to the van, drove to the store and began the lovely experience of food shopping. Through the store we went, loading in soda and this and that, all while I dutifully tagged along and waited for my cue. We got in line.

�Cart full� Richard spelled into my hand. We stood waiting for our turn in line.

�Shop more?� I asked.

�No,� he said. Ok, we walked out with one cart and I helped him load it into the van: as much as he would let me. He tapped me on the shoulder after I handed him the last case of soda, and finished the job himself. Then we drove back to my house and engaged in a very long conversation on the computer.

�Do you have plans tonight? Can you stay?� I asked him.

He was happy to keep me company, so we talked more and I told him I would clean the cookware I had promised him. I went back into my kitchen and he to his computer, and discovered something: it was peaceful. I was calm. It was relaxing having him sitting at my computer and me doing work. Very rarely do I find someone whose presence can relax me. Richard has his moments, he gets frustrated with incompetence, he may or may not misunderstand things, but he does have an amazing ability to do something for me no one else has done: he calms me; even in the midst of his frustrations he calms me. I do not know what it is: I will not try to speculate on it, I only know that from the first night when I wondered how to take a UPS note out of his hand, to this night when he sat at my computer typing out instructions and then showing me how to use a fluting tool, or showing me the sign for �yum� the whole experience was calm. Returning from the kitchen at one point, I came into the room and put my right hand on his left lying on the keyboard. He looked at me and took my hand to hold in his direction

�What are you reading?� I asked him.

�CNN,� he placed the letters in my hand and I signed �of course.� That got a laugh from my friend. CNN is an absolute obsession with him.

�I clean pans,� I signed,� and he return to his work and I to mine.

I came back a few minutes later and sat down next to him. We talked for a while about the San Gabriel mountains and the treasure and the fluting tool and food. We decided to go into the living room and watch TV. That would be a first for me, alone in the house with a deaf man, no interpreter between us; just time and space and finger spelling and the lap top to connect us. But it was too cumbersome to get the lap top, it was on the table and he was on the couch and I didn�t want to bring it there I wanted to try finger spelling.

I have a practice I follow, lately, during commercials I finger spell because they aren�t closed captioned. During commercials I would ask him things and then I would go and work on preparing dinner. I had decided to make rice with garlic butter, stir fry veggies, and barbecue chicken. Early in our relationship I had wondered one thing: how would I share an entire meal with a deaf man? Lori, my original manual alphabet teacher, and I would practice but it usually dissolved into talking and well that just wasn�t going to work here. Richard�s decision not to use his voice in most situations is definitely to my advantage, forcing me to learn the alternate forms of communication we�ve designed. I don�t have the option to use my voice with him, so it�s time to think out of the box, and we do.

Dinner was one of the most magical experiences I�ve ever had. I would reach for some serving utensil, it was in my hand. At one point I reached for the napkin holder. He took my hand. I spelled �napkin� and my hand was on it. We sat there eating in the refreshing silence, something that surprised me because most meals spent with people are not silent affairs.
�Great dinner!� he finally spelled, and then took my hands and signed �very good.� As the chef of the hour I had to make comments on the perceived imperfections (what cook doesn�t), and then we went back in the room and watched sci fi.

The dishes sat unattended in my kitchen. Usually I do dishes right away. Not tonight. I wanted to take advantage of the peaceful atmosphere. The dishes could wait, and they did.

Later, he opened the screen of the laptop sitting on the table. I turned it on. He told me that the graphics in the movie �Final Fantasy� we were watching were animated and looked very real. We discussed that and then he made ready to go.

He took the bags I had put the pans in and went out the door. Looking to my left I noticed that he had forgotten two of the pans. I was not sure whether or not he would return, so I took the pans and went outside and stood by the trash cans in front of my house. I wondered if he would see me.

�Do you need help finding the garbage?� one of my neighbors asked.

�No, I�m waiting for my friend.�

Soon a van made its way to me and a figure came and got the pans. I knew it was him. He said later he had seen me and wondered why I was standing there. I turned and walked back to my apartment very happy and relaxed.

As he left me that night and I thought about it later, I couldn�t help remembering that the first night he had come to pick me up for an oral presentation in Irvine, I had wondered how to take a UPS note out of his hand. Between that day in March, and this one, the day we bought soda and things for the El Camino street fair, we had come a long, long way.

Since that day in May there have been a variety of communication experiences and challenges to be met and tackled and successfully resolved. Each breakthrough in itself is worth its own article and will get one. The overwhelming theme throughout the entire journey has been one of successful resolution of Events from the first tentative explorations of finger spelling to more complicated events of finger spelling. The idea has been that they are all worth it. But I as the receiving end of this new form of communication can attest to two things: I have an amazingly patient teacher, and I am having more fun engaging in such activities than I ever thought possible. It is a stimulating task with many rewards, perhaps the greatest one being that I have gained a friend I may not have had had I not taken the initiative and pursued this more challenging and alternate form of communication. Modern technology has allowed some major leaps in text-based communication to be sure, but when the electrons fail and the circumstances don�t permit, that foundation based on text-based communication can be strengthened by the adition of another tool in one�s arsenal: finger spelling and hand signs. I�m personally glad I took the initiative to start learning them. My journey is by no means over, and I�m looking forward to many more opportunities to enjoy my new friendship and practice my new skills and meet new people.

 

 

Copyright © 2004 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"