Eczema

This is what good office employees do. Due to our hardworking nature, we finish everything early. We then try to see if there are any new projects we could take on, only to be told that there are none left. Not wanting to sit at our desk idly or bother our co-workers, we continue working (in other words, keeping our brains active) by adding eyes to inanimate objects.

So, no, I was not goofing off. I was working.

The other day, I was reading posts on FML (a website with funny/embarrassing stories). One of the posts caught my eye -- it was about a deaf person who lost her cochlear implant because some kid grabbed it off her head and ran off with it. (For the record, I didn't think it was funny at all -- I don't know why the administrators chose to post it.) The majority of the comments were kind and sympathetic, but, of course, there were a few bad apples. Very bad apples. Peppered across the comments section were poorly-written lines such as, "You deserve it bc you decide wear cochlear implant. DEAF PRIDE!" I was appalled at the brash nature of these comments. These deaf people just had to put down a complete stranger just because she chose to use modern technology to improve her chances at functioning in society. Oh my, how DARE she?!

I have and will never understand this "deaf pride" bullshit. I could write an entire book series on how hypocritical, irrational, ridiculous, and self destructive the "deaf community" is. I'll spare you the details, but I'll say that I've never been comfortable with how deaf people think that the world owes them something. I've met more than a handful of deaf people who are experts at scamming the government into giving them free welfare money (which they incessantly abuse). They also demand not equal, but special treatment from society. They pull the deaf card more than Al Sharpton plays the race card. Speaking of which, the deaf card should have been maxed out a long, long time ago.

The only reasonable cause they fight for is stopping discrimination. As a deaf (hard-of-hearing) person myself, I face discrimination every single day of my life, and I wholeheartedly support their cause. However, while demanding society to include them more, deaf people then turn around and bash hearing people and even other deaf people who wear hearing aids and cochlear implants. If that's not counter-productive enough, the "deaf community" is very, very exclusive. Most deaf people I've met won't even interact with hearing people "just because they're not fluent in sign language."

Basically the message they are sending out is, "Look at us poor deaf people. We can't hear, we can't talk, and we're totally helpless! So give us free money, let us cut in front of lines at amusement parks, give us discounts to the movie theaters, turn your head the other way while we dine n' dash, let us shoplift from your store, and let us mooch off you until you run dry because, oh, we're deaf and we don't know any better! But don't even think about being our friend because your lack of knowledge in sign language makes you a horrible imbecile not worthy enough to breathe our air. OUR air."

Like I said before, I will never understand why deaf people behave like that. You don't see blind people tarring and feathering another blind person undergoing surgery to improve their vision. You don't see handicapped people sputtering diatribes against the idea of physical therapy. I believe that the general "anti-hearing" attitude of the "deaf community" is holding us back a few decades. I hope this changes soon. They need to wake up and realize that we live in a hearing world, and there's nothing they can do about it (unless they go berserk and stab everyone's ears with a pencil).

Of course, successful, sane, smart, and goal-oriented deaf people walk the earth, but they are scarce compared to the number of deaf people I've just described. People often wonder why I avoid the "deaf community". Now you know.

Looks like I did write a rant. At least it wasn't a book, let alone a book series.