I wasn’t raised that voting is the patriotic thing to do, or my civic duty, or any of that crap. Instead my dad insisted that voting is important because there are bat-shit crazy people running for office and you have to do everything you can to keep them out. Also, you don’t vote and you can, then you don’t get to complain when you don’t like what the government does. I’ve voted in every election since I turned 18. That said, GO VOTE!!!! It is important.
Going to the polling place is always an adventure and I never know what is going to happen. Unsurprisingly–and assumedly because a majority of voters are senior citizens–people running the polling places usually have some odd ideas of how to deal with the Deaf/Hoh. Not always the most helpful, but they try :)
Today I had a woman yell directly into my hearing aid. People are usually more helpful when they can see that there might be an issue with my hearing, so I put bright/glittery/fun nail polish on the wires for my hearing aids. Right now it’s a really awesome matte turquoise/black confetti. They stand out in an amazing way (I’ve never been or do I think that anyone should be ashamed of wearing hearing aids. You need them? You own that shit!! Make them yours!)
Like I said, poll workers are used to dealing with the elderly, and because The elderly usually don’t like to admit they cannot hear well, they tend to not know some basic strategies to improving their understanding. This leads to awkward moments of having strangers yell directly into the hearing aid. It takes everything I have not to laugh.
It also occurs to me that after a day of errands and walking on my still broken foot, I probably should have written this either before the pain pills kicked in or after they wore off. I have no idea how to wrap this up or recover it from the train wreck I feel it is becoming, so lets just say, today was amusing.
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