Friday 20 November 2015

Deaf Girly's (very) Thankful Friday

Apologies for the radio silence of late – I've no idea where September, October and November have gone... it seems like yesterday I was sunbathing on our little balcony and now I'm working out how to rig up multiple strings of Christmas lights on it without annoying the neighbours.

Anyway, today I'm having a very thankful Friday as FJM is back in the UK and despite hating peanut butter more than anything in the whole wide world, he bought me back a huge bag of every peanut butter confectionary known to man.

I'm also thankful for a rather amazing person – Country Writer – who has spent the last two months making me believe that the last 18 months were worth all the hard work, fights for plugs in the library  and tea consumption.

So today, after eating Peanut Butter M&Ms for breakfast – it was either that or a pink grapefruit and to be honest it wasn't a hard decision – I went to the post office to try and track down a missing parcel. It's a present for my goddaughter and the Amazon Marketplace seller requested I check at the sorting office before they gave me a refund.

Without thinking about it, I set off without my hearing aids and on arrival realised this was a grave mistake. You see, the armoured counter that the posties are behind has a big metal bit just where I need to see to lipread and so I couldn't hear a thing the guy was saying.

I ducked down and peered through the gap between the glass and the counter – ignoring the funny looks he was giving me – and managed to make sure he knew I was after a book-shaped package and was it there?

He replied something and looked around the front office. I managed to catch that he didn't think it was here. And then he disappeared off, saying something as he left.

I stood there for a moment wondering if he was coming back or whether his parting words had been 'Sorry I can't help you, bye,' and I just hadn't managed to catch them.

And I waited. And I waited.

And the problem I had was that the counter is not manned constantly. You ring a bell once you get there to alert them of your presence and they come from the back of the sorting office and serve you.

After a few minutes I was wondering whether I should just leave. But then I worried that he might be out the back rummaging through hundreds of parcels and come back with my parcel to find me gone. But if he came back around the front to find me there after wishing me goodbye 10 minutes earlier, he might think I was a crazy woman. And I would die of embarrassment.

Deciding I could handle the embarrassment over losing out on getting my goddaughter's Christmas present, I carried on waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Until finally he reappeared, looked completely unsurprised to see me there, said something that I decided can only have been, 'I don't have your parcel,' and gave me a helpful wave indicating this to be the case.

So this time I left. Sad that the parcel appears to have gone AWOL and vowing to always wear my hearing aids on trips to my local sorting office.

And I should also be vowing to wear them in Sainsbury's it seems – as shortly after my trip to the sorting office, I lost my volume control while buying dinner. FJM says the whole shop knew we were having Fajitas for dinner and that we'd run out of loo roll.

Awesome eh?

Have a lovely weekend peeps

DG
x

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