I recently received the stinkiest stink eye I’ve ever gotten from an ambulance driver. Before I enter an intersection, even if the light is green, I look both ways; it’s a built-in safety feature I have as a deaf person. I can’t think of a time I’ve witnessed a deaf friend crossing a street or stepping off a curb without first looking both ways.

Yesterday, while riding with Daniel, as I entered an intersection on a green light, I noticed an ambulance making its way through cars that had pulled over to the curb on the far side of the street I was about to cross. I stopped before the ambulance reached the intersection. Still, because everyone else had heard the sirens earlier, I must’ve looked for a monster for even daring to roll into the intersection. That stink eye was so powerful that Daniel noticed it from a few meters back.

Rory explained to me today how sirens have gotten increasingly louder over the years as modern cars have improved their soundproofing. The sirens, Rory says, are so noisy that they hurt most pedestrian’s ears.

I have deaf friends who can hear these sirens before they see them, but deaf as fuck people like me and Zoée exist. We’ve had to reconcile with the fact that, by existing in public, we’ll inevitably offend people without effort. Whenever we notice hearing people shooting us a dirty look, our thoughts automatically go to: they must have tried talking to us. Neither of us wear a red cap, nor do we own a shirt with something offensive written on it, so what else could it be?

All the worse, I was dressed in my cycling kit — a “spandex warrior,” as grumpy drivers like to call recreational cyclists. At that moment, I didn’t look like a regular jerk. I was a jerk cyclist.

Life goes on — for me and hopefully for whoever needed that ambulance.