I had what I would say, a humiliating experience. I went to the bank today to do some banking. The teller looked like he was 16 complete with braces & blue bands on them. Nice. Anyway, I couldn't understand him because of the braces plus he was chewing gum at the same time. I told him, "You know, I'm having a hard time understanding you because you're chewing gum at the same time you're talking. I'm hard-of-hearing so please either spit out the gum so I can understand you or get me another teller to assist me." He just looked at me and TUCKED the gum in his cheek and repeated what he said. At that point, I was mad - and the curse in my family is... when we're mad, we start crying. Oy vey. It didn't help that the other tellers just stood there and stared at me too. Not once did they offer to help, not once did they even just nudge my teller to do something, NOTHING! I was so mad because it just brought up all my insecurities of being deaf trying to fit in some way. Argh.
As it stood, I left without completing my transaction. I just left and thought nasty things to write in a letter to the bank manager. Now... whether I'll follow through with that is another story. With a very predictable ending of: she didn't do it. *sigh*