Non - Verbal Communication

At the grocery store today I saw two guys talking in the aisle. The trick is that one of them was deaf and the other was using the text feature on his cell to type messages. I've seen that done on TV before, but it was the first time I've seen it in public. I don't know sign language which would have made it much more difficult for me to communication with a deaf person before. It's apropos that the cell phone was being used as the communication link, but I doubt that was what the folks who thought up text messaging were really thinking of. Nice example of people making tech their own.