There I was, quietly napping one evening on the sofa after work. Not prone in a deep sleep mind you, just sitting up in that slightly slouched position which makes mothers break down at the lack of propriety. That wonderful feeling descending upon me of peace and bliss as my brain shifted into neutral...all was serene...I floated off...

"BANG, BANG" reverberated the floor. "OOOWWWRRRAAANNNGGGG UUUURRRGGGG!!!!!", smashed through me, causing my slumbering brain cells to collide as though they had been shot together in a Particle Accelerator. Conciseness exploded upon me in a thermonuclear blast!

"What...I wasn't sleeping, I'm awake...". (Come on, you've all said the same thing when violently forced awake.)

Looking around wide eyed, heart pounding two feet out of my chest, reality returned. Farah was at school and I'm was left helplessly at home, hostage to the mercy of my two children.

Fire blazed within my once slumbering eyes as they lock onto the faux innocent and mock bewilderment in the
eyes of my children. My eyes dart quickly between Kisha and Jaden as they lay on the floor in front of me, kittens crouched in fear between them.

No words were spoken, no words were needed. The unspoken "Dad Rule" had been violated and justice had to be swiftly dispense if control was to be kept within the Dad-dom of my realm!

"Can't either of you see I was sleeping?! I see no blood, fire, or alien invasion here, there was no reason to wake me! Which one of you made that loud noise?!", I bellowed with the "Charlton Heston on Mount Sinai" voice which struck fear onto the nails of the floorboard and all else within my home.

Kisha, quickly sized up the precarious situation her life was in and shifted into self preservation mode the way only women can do. She looked at Jaden in shocked disbelief and said, "Jaden! Why did you do that?! I told you not to be loud, Dad was sleeping".

Jaden, hands stuck in stuttering signs as the treachery of being thrown under the bus by his younger sister crashed down on his head, searched for a defensive position. Slowly, his brain regaining traction, he signed, "Not me loud noise make at you. Playing with kittens me. Loud noise at kittens. Why? scare them".
______
My mind flashed back to a conversation I had with my Mom during high school. It went like this:

"Steve! Pay attention to me. I'm talking to you!"

"Mooooommmmmm," I said rolling my eyes and turning to look at her with the best, put out, 17 year old attitude I could muster, "I am paaaayyyyyying attention to you, (eye roll)."

"No, your not. I know."

"Yes I am!"

"No! You not pay attention. I'm deaf, not stupid! Your not pay attention when I talk!"

Stunned by Mom's accusation I'd think she was stupid because she was deaf, when in fact I thought her logic was faulty due to motherhood...(That's a perfectly common belief of teenage boys. "Motherhood" hinders a Mom's perception of reality, while "Fatherhood" heightens a Dad's. No, it's a scientific fact, Mom's are all lost and stupefied when they see, or hear, what their teenage boys are doing. Pondering late into a sleepless nights, why their son would act in such a way?! Dad's on the other hand are always impressed and filled with pride in the way their sons have acted. Dad's have sleepless nights secretly pondering how they lost their logic and coolness; perplexed by the effects of marriage.)...I responded incredulously, "That makes no sense Mom".

"Pay no attention to me. I know, why? You don't look at me when I talk. That's proof, no attention."

"Wait! Your saying, because I didn't look at you while you were talking to me, I clearly wasn't paying attention to you? That's what you think Mom?"

"It's clear, if I don't look at you when you talk, I'm not paying attention. Look attention; no look, no attention. It's that simple. Don't act dumb with me!"

The gears of my mental transmission ground horridly, unable to mesh during a total "DUHHH" moment breakdown. Mom's "Deaf-centric" world view became clear to me for the first time in my 17 years of existence. CODA-hood not withstanding, this total shift of norms was befuddling!

"Mom, my head is turned, you talk to me, I can still hear you. The sound doesn't stop just because my ears are turned a different way."

"Not possible, I see you, I see what you say. I understand you. I pay attention to you. I look away, I don't see what you say. I don't understand you. I don't pay attention to you. Simple! Eyes work one way, ears worn one way too. I know."

We went over this central difference between "Deaf-tonian" physics and "CODA-steinian" physics, only to reach a Kissingeresque "agree to disagree" .
______

After hours of utilizing flip charts and drawing diagrams; using physical models to visually display how vibrations and sound waves travel in all directions from an epicenter; conducting experiments designed to show Jaden how no matter, whether his back is turned to me or not, rendering me out of his field of sight, he can still feel the vibrations and how vibrations and sounds work in the same way, he looked at me and signed, "Thump, thump, loud me at you no. Yell loud me at you no. Me at kitties. Funny see kitties jump cower look around. Look you me not thump yell loud. Kitties look me only". (For the signing impaired, I render this interpretation: "I wasn't thumping loudly at you dear Father at any time in the recent past. Nor was I emitting banshee like vocalizations. Nay say I, the loud disturbances to terra firma and auditory sensing appendages on your cranium were wholly and solely directed to that of the diminutive Felis catus. I derive great amusement and find it highly humorous to watch the Felis catus lurch skyward, recoil, an search about visually. I was merely direction my entire visual perception upon them.")

Too worn out from the clash of culturally perceived norms, I did what any good dad would do...I acted as though the entire evenings occurrence had never happened.