Only Funny In Hindsight

4100 bar is known for being loud - too loud. So it was only appropriate that the girls across the table wanted me to repeat my badass breaking the ice line "So, what are you guys up to this evening?" so that they could "read my lips."

I repeat. Several confused, slightly annoyed, looks.

"I can't hear you, I'm deaf."

I laugh. Okay. She reaches for a piece of paper and a pen and passes it to me.

I write "So what are you guys up to this evening."

She writes, "We went to a sucky party and then came here."

Snooze. I sit back, unable to think of anything remotely worth talking about.

I slowly sip my beer, wondering where the fellas went. I watch the girls as they signing and gesturing to one another...

Shit. I pick up the pen. "I apologize, I thought you were joking about being deaf."

Furrowed brow. She responds, "who would joke about something like that?"

I write, "I thought you were being facetious because it's so loud in here."

We have reached a new low. Only the time when I made fun of epileptics at summer camp (and it turned this kid was an epileptic) did I feel more stupid.

Phil returns to the table. I lean in - "these girls are deaf."

"Yeah, right, they're fucking with us. Just like something we would do."

They keep going and going with the sign language.

"They're taking this awfully far."

She picks up the paper "Cig break."

They go outside. Phil predicts that if he goes outside, they will be talking regular. I challenge him to do so. He refuses.

They come back and sit at our table again signing away. They are, I am sure, deaf, and beyond that, utterly loathe me. Phil isn't helping.

I'm so uncomfortable, I have to leave the table and want to leave the bar. I'm sitting by the bar and I see Phil talking to them. He comes up to me.

"What did you ask them?"

"I asked them to see if they wanted to come to your place to hang out."

"Are you kidding? They hate us."

"Yeah, well, they declined."

The last time I was at 4100, Chuck D and I encountered racist, homophobic embalmers - this time, bitchy deaf chicks. These type of things never happened to me in SF.