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Thursday, February 5, 2009

The Hartwell Chronicles … Unprepared for the hearing impaired

Random situations seem to be a main stay in my life.
Some of them I know how to handle. Most of them I throw up my hands and say “I can’t be bothered.”
But there are a few I am just down right unprepared for.
Like when this random man came into the office ever so quietly.
I saw him walk up to a co-worker without saying a word. Sometimes I’m paranoid, so I thought he was about to shoot up the place.
Eventually I realized he was just giving him a card, and I went back to work.
Out the corner of my eye I noticed him giving everyone else a card.
“Oh he’s probably giving out business cards,” I thought.
I guess you could say it was in a sense.
He soon came to me and handed the “card.”
It was a card with an American flag pin attached to it. It read “I am a deaf person making my living by selling these pins. Please make a donation.”
He then walked off.
I was dumbfounded!
My co-worker called me and we both shared how we didn’t even know how to respond to this. I mean really, is this really a normal way of soliciting?
Soon we went back around to everyone and collected donations.
Then he got to me.
I hardly ever carry cash and wasn’t expecting for someone to solicit donations in the office.
So I sadly shook my head no. And he took the pin back!
I was definitely not prepared for that. For some strange reason I thought I would be able to keep it.
What’s more is I wanted it too. On the back was the alphabet in sign language.
I already know how to say “Do better” in sign language. I was going to learn how to say “I can’t be bothered.”
I thought about signing “do better” to the man just for soliciting.
But maybe I need to stop the hating. He made more money in 10 minutes than all of us.
I need to learn how to hustle like that too.
So I should be telling this with a sigh.
Somewhere ages and ages hence.
A hearing impaired man stopped by, and I
Had no money so he said goodbye
And that has made all the difference…
Too bad Robert Frost didn’t write any poems about being unprepared.

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