Eavesdropping

Eavesdropping was (and still is) nearly impossible with my daughters Rachel and Hannah.  They would speak to each other in front of their deaf parents (that’s me and my wife Denise), and they knew (and still know) we couldn’t catch what they spoke about.  On the opposite end, we parents would sign to each other, knowing our girls couldn’t catch what we were conversing about.  The favorite question on both sides had been “What are you talking about?” 

Eventually, our girls have had to become adept in American Sign Language (ASL).  As a consequence of their sign skills, we’ve had to become more open with Hannah and Rachel.  However, we’re still at a disadvantage, because they still speak to each other, and we can’t eavesdrop on them – they are too smart for us.

But nothing is that interesting unless a deaf person like me had caught someone (not a relative of mine at all) signing at a great distance, right?  Especially when that person knew the deaf person like me, right?  Do you think it could ever happen?  Yes it did, and it was without any intention on my part to listen not to one person, but to a couple in love.

It happened one day at dinnertime at Lowell House, one of 12 or 13 upper-class dormitory houses at Harvard College.  I picked up my dinner from the cafeteria and walked to a table in a very crowded dining hall.  I don’t remember what I had for dinner, but I was alone and thought I would speak to someone in the table where I’d sit.  As I sat, I recognized a couple about 40 yards away.  The guy was a senior, and his girlfriend was a junior, like me.

What grabbed my attention was the guy fingerspelled a particular sentence to his girlfriend.  When I first saw it, I took my time eating my dinner.  By the time he spelled the same sentence for the third time, I finished my dinner very quickly and left the table right away.  I thought it was TMI – too much information, even though the sentence remained the same after three times.  And I didn’t want them to catch me watching them.

The couple knew me slightly, but they thought it was okay to communicate in fingerspelling because they could not see me in a crowded, noisy and huge dining hall.  After all, I sat far away from them. The couple also thought no one else could understand fingerspelling.  

Remember that Harvard was almost full of students and faculty with typical (e.g., normal) hearing.  They were really smart, but they had little, if ANY, knowledge of fingerspelling, much less ASL.  If they did, they could not read what the couple was talking about — the guy was quite prolific at fingerspelling.

While I could easily understand the fingerspelling, there was no way I was going to tell the couple to keep it quiet.  If I did, it would embarrass the hell out of them, especially the guy.  He was the one who fingerspelled, and if caught, he might catch some grief from his girlfriend.  Why should I ruin a romantic night, or even their relationship, for them?  

I could look away from the couple, but I didn’t do it.  It’s not often that I would participate in a really interesting conversation, even with my being a totally silent and distant observer.  I also was hungry and tired from a long day of classes and the Harvard Crimson, where I was a staff photographer. I just sat down, and I wanted to eat my dinner.  Of course, it didn’t last long.

When I finished my dinner and left the dining hall, there was no way for me to know if the couple had seen me leaving the dining hall.  That room was still crowded, noisy and huge. It was easy to get lost in the crowd there.

So, you want to know how the particular sentence went.  Here it is, as spelled:  I-W-A-N-T-T-O-F-U-C-K-Y-O-U. 

I have repeated this story to whoever would listen to me ever since.  I’ve told both my family and my friends.  When I told one graduate student (both of us shared the same Ph.D. advisor at UPenn), she thought I was a sex fiend.  She didn’t say it right away, but by the time we graduated with our doctorates five years later, her outlook on me had changed.  It was then that she told me what she initially thought of me after I told her my story.  We’ve become good friends, and continue to exchange holiday cards.