Deaf people arguing

I saw a disturbing thing just a little while ago. I was walking along the street and I heard a bit of a rumpus coming from the other side of a car, and it was a deaf couple having a fight. They were making the noises with their mouths that deaf people often make, but were furiously signing between actually pushing, pulling, and hitting each other. As I came into their field of vision, the woman stopped, suddenly aware that someone else was around.

It wasn't extremely violent. The woman seemed to be doing more of the hitting then he was, but what seemed most bizarre was the furious and fast nature of the signing, as insults were plainly being exchanged with just hand, arm and finger movements.

I don't really know why I was shocked. I suppose I imagined that deaf people live in a condescending bubble of niceness, where none of them can be unpleasant or lose their tempers or be just like anyone else.

It was kind of sad, though. I guess we often get conditioned to believe that handicapped people are somehow morally superior to the rest of us.