Teen shames annoyingly loud classmate by revealing her hearing aid. AITA?
'AITA for using my hearing aids to make someone look stupid?'
I (f18) have moderate hearing loss. I lost hearing over the years with many ear related incidents. I wear hearing aids to hear people talk sometimes but I mainly use them at school.
When I start a school year, I tell the teacher that I wear hearing aids and they normally put me next to their desks so I can hear them without the use of my hearing aids.
In one of my classes I have a girl Lily. Lily likes to yell at people to get them to come to her instead of getting up to talk to them. No matter who tells her to stop she won't. The teacher stop trying to get her to stop a long time ago.
In this class we have to take notes. Lily missed notes day and the teacher told her to find someone with notes. No one near her wanted to give he the notes so she chose me.
I was on the opposite side of the room and she began yelling at me. She has done this all year and it was annoying. I didn't look at her. I just kept working on other school work.
I wasn't going to give her special treatment because she was lazy. (She had no mobility issues. She just doesn't want to walk to other people)
She kept getting louder and more frustrated that I wasn't going to her. She yelled at me for 10 minutes before she stood up and walked over to me.
She was very mad at me and kept saying that it was stupid that I didn't go to her and that she shouldn't have to stand up. She very loudly asked 'what are you deaf?'
The entire class was watching us. (I have no idea where the teacher was) I slowly turned to her before taking out the case that has my hearing aids in it and made a show of putting them in. I then very loudly asked her 'what?'.
She got very red in the face and then turned around and walked back to her seat. No one in that class knew I wore hearing aids because my hair covers them.
My sister said it was mean of me to do that to her because she didn't know and I wasn't wearing my hearing aids and I could hear her because she was very loud.
So, AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
OP, you are a hero. This is glorious just-deserts you have dished up to this belligerent a**hole. NTA.
The OP responded here:
I agree. One of my better moments.
Hopefully she'll stop now and think before she speaks. NTA.
Wait so the teacher lets her scream like that all the time? She screamed for 10 min straight and they didn’t tell her to calm down ?
The OP responded again:
It doesn't matter what the teacher says she doesn't listen. She's been suspended many times already for stiff like that. Also the teacher wasn't in the room. She left after telling her to get notes. No clue where she was.
NTA - That had to be a one in a lifetime opportunity way to respond to “are you deaf” haha that's gold. She prob will never try to talk to you again.
As someone who has worn hearing aids for over 30 years, these opportunities come up more often than one might think - not always with such flourish, but people are obnoxious and think it’s appropriate to tell random people to “turn up their beltones.” I’ve had many opportunities to watch these people melt in place when sincerely telling them mine are already turned up.
NTA. Hopefully she learned a valuable lesson about how to interact with people she doesn’t know.