Dinner was the steak house, a fine restaurant, and the Maitre‘d seated us next to a table with two older men who had so many gold chains on their necks that they looked like members of the Sopranos gone wild. One man was bald with grey strands here and there, while the other had thinning hair dyed pitch black. He looked ridiculous.

But he - and his friend - sounded far worse. You see, they were both deaf and as happens with deaf people, they spoke in shouts; shouts that rattled our bones since we were sitting within arms' reach of them. They also talked at curious times as the following will show:

SKINNY: I think I'll have the lamb chops. I haven't had them here before. I wonder how they are?

DYED HAIR (shouting): Last time they were terrific!

SKINNY (turning to Dyed Hair): Oh, thanks for... (Then he realized that Dyed Hair had not been shouting to him but to Grey Strands.)

STICKMAN: I'm going with beef tenderloin.

GREY STRANDS (shouting): That's good, good, good, my friend!

Stickman turned to the table of the deaf, also thinking that one of those gold encrusted seniors was shouting to him. The guy wasn't; he was shouting to Dyed Hair.

SCOBE (that's me): This is really weird. Maybe we should change our table.

DYED HAIR (shouting): I think you should; I think you should.

I turned to him.

DYED HAIR: Have another glass of wine (he was shouting to Grey Strands). It's comped!

Skinny took the bull by the horns, or rather the deaf by the hearing aids, and requested of the waiter that we be allowed to move our table. Unfortunately Skinny said this as the two started shouting to each other.

WAITER: What? What?

SKINNY (shouting): We want to change our table!

Unfortunately, when Skinny shouted, it was the exact moment that the deaf-duo stopped shouting. Skinny's face turned red because he thought they had heard him; but I looked over at the pair and they had not heard him. Instead, they resumed shouting at each other and we were moved to a private room in a "galaxy far, far away." Sadly, a couple was shortly seated at the table near the "living deaf" but they did not have the sense to plea bargain a move to another table.

When the meal was over, Skinny said to the couple as we passed their table, "Is your hearing back?"

"God," said the woman. "It's been awful."

The two deaf guys were still there shouting and had no idea we were talking about them. I was just hoping they weren't craps players.