Instant Communication

There comes a time in a CODA's life when he needs to post a cautionary tale. This tale I post today has the sole purpose of warning innocent blog readers about a gloomy fate awaiting them  should they make carelessly thought out wishes.

The grocery store has to be one of the most vexing places to a man. Many a good man has lost his way amongst the produce, only to be found mumbling to himself in the health and beauty aisles months later. ( I remember reading a story bout a husband who had been sent to the store by his wife back in 2003. When he finally emerged he kept jabbering incoherently about the "Aisle of Doom". After in-depth therapy and forensic psycho analysis, it was discovered that he had had serious damage done to his psyche by the never ending wall of unimaginable and mind warping choices in the feminine products aisle. The man is still unable to talk about his experience...the flash backs are all to real to him even to this day. I hear Congress is debating legislation to have warning signs posted at each end of the feminine product aisle, warning men of serious adverse health problems caused by prolonged exposure to these aisles. I guess it's like the warning on cigarette packs.)

Only a man can walk into a store, a store he has walked into a thousand times before, and have his brain entirely wiped of all cognitive ability, thus rendering men unable to find a single thing. This temporary psychosis happens when men attempt to shop alone without their wives.( I kid you not, being doomed to shop alone for all eternity is one of Dante's levels of hell specifically created for men.)

While making my third round of wandering the grocery store, up and down every aisle ad nauseum, unable to find the simple three items Farah had asked me to pick up for her, my iPhone went off with a buzzing which very nearly had me jumping out of my skin.  It was from Willa, an old deaf lady I had grown up knowing as more of a family member than a friend.  All families have one of those old "Aunts" or "Uncles", who aren't a real family member, yet have been so entwined with your family that they are given the honorary title of "Aunt" or "Uncle". Willa was that person for me. She may not be a relative by blood, yet she is a member of our family non the less.

You need to understand something about Willa. She is the kind of person who has that special knack of saying just the right thing, at just the right moment, to enrage whomever she is assaulting with a communicative bludgeoning. To make matters worse, due her greatly advanced years, Willa was just the right age to get away with saying whatever she thought, without any concern for rebuttal, retribution, or repercussion.  (It has been rumored that Willa dated both Edward Minor Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell at the same time, and that she made comments to both men, comments that only Willa would find to be innocent and unintentional, stoking the rivalry between these men. Deafies around the world have Willa to thank for starting the feud between Oral v. Manual education.)

"Why you answer not?"

Puzzled, I amusingly responded, "Simple, I haven't got a message from you.  Can't answer messages I haven't received, now can I? Are you trying to use deafie mind meld and send me psychic messages again? I've told you many times, deafie mind tricks don't work on CODA's. lol "

CODAs around the world break out in a cold sweat recalling the stern, no nonsense fire that burns within the eyes of a elderly deafies when they are not amused by a CODA witty remark. Even more astounding is how some deafies are able to cause the same response in a CODA via a text message. Such was my reaction when I read, "Send, send, send all day you. Not you answer, why? Willa serious biz talk. Understand Willa, I Willa old, you young, family have you, Willa not real family. Sorry Willa pest you. Die now Willa. Alone, no help. Talk at hearing can't Willa. Worry not you. Love you and family. Now Willa shut up for die." I stared in total agnst and stultified bafflement. Not only had the trauma of grocery shopping with Farah caused me near total brain cell paralysis, now I had Willa killing off the few brain cells still able to function.

Texts were being received and send in blinding speed. "Willa send you ", "Willa did not send me", yes, no, yes, no, on and on it went as I wildly gestured at my iPhone, all the while making odd facial expressions. All around me, parents grabbed their children and rush them away in fear.

With strange NERDAs giving me annoyed looks as they try to get around me in the crowded aisle, I typed, "I'm sorry Willa. I haven't got any texts from you today. What is the important business?"

"No, you too busy to help Willa. Willa solve important biz self." This is the one retort a deafie can give that cuts even the hardest CODA heart. I clutched at my heart as I wheeled when I read this text. In the middle of produce, surrounded by shelves of over priced, green leafy vegetables, that had a suspiciously similar appearance with garden weeds and strange names like "kale", "Swiss chard", "collards" and "endive", waves of CODA guilt washed over me. All I could say was, "I'm not too busy. How can I help?"

No response...

The true meaning of crushing silence can only be understood by a CODA who is waiting for an unamused deafie to respond. As I endured the texting blackout from my Willa, I continued to wander the store helplessly and thought back to dark days before we had cell phones.

I realize to some who read this post, the idea of a world before we had the ability to text and gain instant communication is simply unbelievable, yet it is true. When I was young there was no way to contact deaf parents when they were gone. All a CODA could do was tough it out and wait. Endless, mind numbing hours of my youth were whiled away waiting for my parents to return home. NERDA kids could call their parents. ( How the knowledge of this unjust twist of fate drove me crazy. Yet, I now see how young CODA's have their characters built and developed, not to mention the development of their gluteus patience-mus muscles. Heaven knows, CODA's must learn to be patient during a marathon "Deaf Parent to Deafie Friend" goodbye. Such goodbyes between deaf parents and their deaf friends have been known to out last the life span of the Aldabra Giant Tortoise...200 years. I kid you not.)

I can remember vividly how when I was 12 years old, I stood outside our home in Kent during a torrential downpour that the National Weather Service later classified as a Class 5 hurricane, because I forgot my house key and my parents were gone.  My best NERDA friend asked me why I didn't just call my parents and have them come home and let me in. My answer was delivered with such a brilliantly blinding string of obscenities that caused him to run away in shock, covering his ears and praying. ( I've been told by my Astronomer friends, that my string of obscenities can still be seen circling Neptune.) After that, I was left standing there on the front steps, shivering as I felt the rain soaking through my new jeans and making a denim blue puddle below me...not to mention how my underwear was quickly being dyed blue...all I could think about was how I wish I had a device to let my parents know what catastrophe was befalling me. I wished and wished and wished, all to no avail as the denim blue puddle grew below me.

BBBBBUUUUUUZZZZZZZ, suddenly went my phone, awakening me from my memories. "Did you change phone number?"

"No, I have the same cell phone number I've had for over ten years", I told my Willa.

"Change number you mean. How Willa call you when Willa die? You want Willa die alone, no more bother you. Why you not answer Willa? Important business!"

I stood in the ethnic food aisle and looked at my iPhone in total befuddlement! How was I to escape from this web of craftiness Willa had trapped me in?! If I make a joke about what Willa just said, instantaneous messages will be plastered all over the "Deafosphere" about how mean I am and how I wish poor old Willa to die. Then I'd be wide open to scathing messages from my mother, Deaf Bob's Wife, telling me how embarrassed and horrified she and Pop are to know that I want Willa dead. How are they to go to another deaf function? Then Pop, will text me and say, "You not worry what people say about Deaf Bob. No, you think hard, what people say about Deaf Bob's Wife? They say, 'Look, there Deaf Bob's Wife, her son hate all deafies. He kill Willa with hate. True biz.' Think how Mama, Deaf Bob's Wife, feel. Think you, think." Then there would be the reception I'd get at home. Jaden asking me, "Say it ain't so Father, say it ain't so...You want Willa and all deafies to die? Mother and I too?" Then Farah would say...well, I can't say what Farah would say...what was I to do?! Then, out of the blue, the totally radical and uncharacteristic answer came to me...I'd just tell Willa the sweet, simple truth, so I said to her, "Willa, I am not mean and I have not changed my number. I don't want you to die. Your not a bother. What is the important business? I will answer you and help in any way I can once I get a text from you telling me about the important business."

"Willa ask, you sure your number same? You didn't change it?"

"I am sure I have the same cell phone number I have had all these years. I can prove it is the same number. look at all the texts I'm sending you. I'm using the same number you have been sending me texts with today. Sending texts using the same number you've used to text me for the past ten years", I typed in the most sarcastic key pounding I could muster. ( I know, I shouldn't be sarcastic with a person as old as Willa was, but I was suddenly struck with the fear that I may suffer the same fate as her past four husbands...texted to death! The Sarcasm Reaction is an even more primal survival strategy than the Fight-or-Flight Reaction. So, it was an instinctual response that I couldn't suppress.) 

I am unable to write the response Willa sent back due to FCC rules...let's just say I once again turned pale and broke out in a cold sweat when I read Willa's words. Clearly CODA sarcasm via texts is as unwelcome and unappreciated by elderly deaf women as is badly timed CODA humor. During the next excruciatingly long series of texts, I kept all my texts to Willa serious and sincere. 

Finally, the issue was resolved when Willa sent, "Willa know now, Willa figure out happen what. Willa not text you. Willa sent at you emails. Email you same?" This brought on another hour of standing around in the grocery store, investigating why I was not responding to her emails, filled with the same gesturing, facial expressions and scaring of parents with young children, as earlier.

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I would like to take a moment now and make a public service announcement. For all of you reading this post, should you be of the mind that typing classes are a waste of time... rethink this you dolt! Typing classes are some of the most useful classes offered in this day of computers and instant communication. Please save yourself great angst and consternation and indescribable embarrassment, by learning to type well. Thank you for your time. Now back to the post.

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You would think at nearly 45 years old, I would learn that old deaf women are always right. Once again I had this proved to me when Willa sent me the email address I had sent her weeks before. Seems I had sent her a typo...I had mistakenly typed an "a" instead of an "s" in my email address. (Hey, my fingers are too big for the touch screen of my iPhone and I never took typing in high school. Excuse me people.) Once I humbly asked for my Willa's forgiveness for my faulty typing, and she finished recapping all the erroneous  protestations I had sent for the past few hours regarding the fact I hadn't responded to her, my CODA guilt was eased when she told me all was fine now and she was glad we solved the problem and she was sure I would do better from then on. (Nothing can sooth the raging CODA guilt as patronizing words from a wronged elderly deaf woman.)

Having solved the message problem with Willa, I was beaming with relief till I took a few steps and the weight of realization crashed upon my head; I still hadn't found the items Farah texted me to buy four hours ago. The blackness of total despair was enveloping my mind when an angle of mercy came to my aid.

Within minutes, I was driving home with two thoughts pressing on my mind. First; how do I explain to Farah the four hours filled with aimless wandering and inability to find the three items she wanted, all the complications of Willa's texts, and how I was saved by the kind mercy of a six year old girl looking to earn her Brownie "Help a Hapless Male Shopper" merit badge? Secondly; it struck me that after all the back and forth of the wild text chase with my Willa, my failed attempt of humor, my CODA guilt, my unwelcome sarcasm, my realization that high school typing classes would not have been a waste of time as I had thought before shopping, and my redemption, I still had no idea what "serious business" Willa had tried to email me? After all that time, Willa had never said. (To this day, I still have no idea what the "serious business" concerned.)

The lesson in this post is to be careful what you wish while standing outside of Deaf Bob's home during a torrential downpour of a Class 5 hurricane in Kent when you are 12 years old. Take my carelessly thought out wish for a device by which I could instantly communicate with parents as proof to be careful what you wish, that wish maybe granted. Little did I know the day I made that wish, how it would haunt me. My wish created the twin danger of deafies and CODAs texting.

Conquest of the Back Seats

Last week, Farah and I went out on a trip. A long trip, in the family mini van. A long trip, in the family mini van, with the kids. A long trip in the family mini van, with the kids, without any mind numbing video entertainment for the blessings in the back seats.

It started out easy enough. Farah was driving and I was riding shot gun...that is, I was riding in the passenger seat, locked and loaded for the inevitable behavior melt down from the back seats. I was tense with anticipation of the moment when all civilized behavior evaporated, calling forth the blinding flash grenade of fatherly discipline as I move in to dispel the sibling riot.

It is a scientifically proven fact, from the moment the starter engages the engine, meshes gears and the family mini van begins to move, it is only a matter of preciously short time before the idle minds of children will mesh brain gears and engage their hands in all kinds of unimaginable destruction and annoyance in the back seats. ( Einstein wrote one of his most famous theoretical physics papers on this phenomenon of this exact Relativity. I kid you not.) Many a family outing has been smashed on the rocks of sibling riotousness and rivalry when left unchecked. I for one, was not prepared to permit this from happening.

Then it started...

 "Ah Dad, Jaden is back here touching me. Tell him to stop.", came the first shot of sibling war from my little Amazon Princess. Her voice carried that tone that only females can manage to produce and make grown men break out in a cold sweat. (Oh how I envied Jaden at that moment. Deafness was never a more pure blessing then at the moment Kisha used that tone.)

For those of you who haven't been raised with deaf parents, or spent much time in the deaf community, front to back seat conversation isn't a comfortable experience, let alone front to back seat discipline an effective parenting technique. ( Let me tell you, both deaf and CODA children learn early that the heavy sword  of parental discipline is greatly blunted from the front seat to the back, when parents cannot readily assume the  proper obedience demanding stance. Its a sad sight to see a parent break down and weep from the loss of total parental dictatorial power.) 

Suppose you only turn your hear to look at a passenger in the back seat, getting one eye fully focused on the person, while the other eye is struggling to find a focal point. No child can resist breaking out in uncontrolled laughter when they see their father looking like a chameleon, eyes all wonky, looking in all different directions. Let me tell you, this just plays havoc with your stereoscopic vision.( I won't even get into the serious muscle strain caused to your back and neck, or the fact half of your buttocks instantly falls sleep from this position. No, somethings are better left unsaid.)

There are those who try to have a conversation in signs with someone seated in the rear seats though the mirror on the underside of the visor. I don't think this works well. Just stop and think a moment, all things look backwards in a mirror. That causes all kinds of misunderstanding with signs. Why I remember very well a signed conversation gone bad from the mirror problem. The signer kept finger spelling "live" and the person looking at the signer through the mirror kept thinking he finger spelled "evil". What a linguistically mess that was.

No, the full body shift is the only way to talk to a deafie in the back seat. It is an illegal way to sit in the front seat in 49 states, seeing how you have to unbuckle yourself to do it. ( I'm sure none of the people who wrote those laws were deaf or a CODA. If they were, they would have known better.)

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Let me take a moment to say that I am a strong believer in brevity, therefore, let me just explain that all signed conversations from this point forward have been interpreted for the signing impaired. Now back to the blog.
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Shifting my body so as to see Jaden, I give him one of my Dad looks. ( A dad look is a look that can stop paint in mid drip, not to mention stop children in mid misbehavior. Freezing all bodily movements in the exact space they were when the gaze of the Dad look fell upon them.) In my briliance I said, "Why are you touching your sister? Stop touching her."

"What?...Who touched her?", he said with a mock look of astonishment.

Mustering my most authoritative facial expression, "You Jaden, you touched her and I want it stopped now."

As an incredulous smile slowly crept across his face, Jaden said, "Stop what?"

"Stop touching her", I signed with both eyebrows raised and eyes popping.

"Stop touching who?", he said as he looked around quizzically.

You know how some people have a vein that pops out on their foreheads when they get excited? That's what happened to me when I signed, "Stop touching Kisha!"

After I had spatially/gesturally/visually sparred with Jaden in signs for ten minutes,   Kisha had had enough bouncing her head back and forth between Jaden and I and said, "Yeah, stop!  Don't touch me. (Brushing off her sleeve as if some dirt were there.)  I don't like to be touched by boys...boys don't wash and smell funny!" In an attempt to add a visual exclamation point to her last statement, Kisha stuck out her tongue at Jaden.

Unknown to me, since I was facing the two cherubs in the back seats, and getting absolutely car sick, Farah was watching us through the rear view mirror the whole time. Quietly, with one eye brow raised, taking in all that was going on. (Deaf mothers have this way of knowing whats going on at all times. Doesn't make any difference if they are paying any attention to whats happening around them or not. I have seen Farah, freshly awaken from a deep nap, way up in our bedroom, come down stairs, go out into the back yard where the kids and I have been for half the day without her, and comment that what we had been doing. How does she do that?! How did she have any idea what we were doing? Some how she did know and told us so. Personally, I believe it is sub sonic, misbehaving vibes that deaf mothers are acutely atone too. The thought right now makes me go all goosebumply!)

"Father, I strenuously lodge a formal protest and urgently insist that she be made to stop extending her muscular articulation appendage at me. It is exceptionally unbecoming in a young lady ...if I DARE use the term 'lady' in association with Kisha", countered Jaden, sarcasm and contempt dripping off every sign. (What? Oh, you don't understand the interpretation "muscular articulation appendage"...that means her tongue. Hey people! I'm just interpreting what he said.) 

"He said I'm not...(Kisha's eyes widened tearfully)... I'm not...(Lower lip started to quiver)... I'm not...( Chest began heaving)... a LADY!", and with that Kisha let loose a wail I thought would shatter all the van's windows let alone my ear drums.

Round and round we went. Kisha wailed, Jaden not comprehending what had happened to who, and all the while I was bouncing between speaking and signing. Speaking to Kisha in my best consoling Dad voice, only to have Jaden tap me and question how he was to understand who was touching whom, if I didn't sign? Turning to Jaden and starting to sign what could only be a lost Abbott and Costello skit concerning who touched whom, led Kisha to break forth with renewed wailing. On and on, over and over, speaking then signing, signing then speaking, the entire violent cycle kept repeating,  till it all suddenly stopped!

Snapping around, all I see is the fleeting remnant of a coolly constructed, yet highly effective, short sign made by Farah. With just one quick sign, she silenced what to me had been an unending round of uncontrollable adolescent shenanigans. (Once again I ask you, how do deaf mothers do that?!) Turning back to the kids, I saw what can only be described as total submission and obedience...something I had never seen in my children before. Never had my Dadness invoked such instant respect and fear. Nay, this instant silence and behaving can only come from the hands of a deaf mother.

I just sat for the rest of the trip in deep in awe and perplexity. I was awed by my wife's sheer power over, and total command of, the unruly back seats. Perplexed with the effortless manner in which she wheeled such unthinkable power and yet never did a single hair move on her head as she let forth unparalleled authority. (Mind you, I sat up straight for the rest of the drive. I wasn't having what she just did unleashed on the kids turned upon me. I saw what she did to the kids and she never even touched them, let alone look directly at them.)    

Believe you me, deaf mothers are the most powerful beings on this Earth. No doubt about it.
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(Ok all you deafies and CODAs, I know finger spelled words don't look backwards in a mirror, but the NERDAs don't know that, so don't tell them. Let's just keep it our little joke on them, ok? ( What? What's a NERDA? Oh, that's short for "Not Even Related to a Deaf Adult"...NERDA. Hey, if they are going to label me CODA, "Child Of Deaf Adults", why can't I name hearing people NERDA's? Yeah, I like it too.) Now remember, don't tell the NERDA's our joke about finger spelling in mirrors.)

Linguistic Blindness

It had been a gruelingly hard day, slaving away, interpreting my fingers down to the bone. Some days are like that as a professional bi-cultural bi-lingual mediator. (Hey, I know it's a fancy pants title for what I do, but it's one of the few perks of being an interpreter. Refrain from rendering my shallow male ego shattered upon the rugged cliffs of modern American sensibility.)

Fathers are the only people on the face of the Earth who can sit in a chair, look at the television, respond to their wife's questions, and entertain the children all at the same time. While doing all this, a father is quietly throwing all his brain breakers and shutting down all mental functions. (This is true multitasking.)

I was well into this exacting mental shut down when out of the dimming light came the very familiar shriek, "Ah Dad!"  Suddenly, the brain breakers are violently slammed into "on" and I jump out of my seat, with a crazed look in my eyes to discovered what unthinkable tragedy broken the stillness of my home. ( I kid you not, violently slamming brain breakers on can only lead unexpected outcomes. Last time this happened, I agreed that having a baby was a grand idea. Now you've all seen what that has done to me.)

"Dad!", came the harmonious tones from my little Amazon Princess Kisha. "Make Jaden stop! He keeps antagonizing me! Make him stop!"

Slowly down the steps comes Jaden. He has that look in his eyes that only deafies can manage. It's a cross between befuddled fake innocence and proud unassuming skullduggery amusement. I've seen this look before in his eyes. He gets that same look whenever he is stricken with "linguistic blindness". I swear, it is a true physical phenomenon that without any prior explanation, or warning of any kind, falls upon Jaden and renders him totally incapable of understanding the simplest signed question. Equally as amazing is how "linguistic blindness" will instantly vanish once the topic of discussion is changed and the light of suspicion is no longer shining on Jaden.

"You "J'+shake hand you, for for++ mean pick pick you Kisha for for++?? See see bawling Kisha Wow! Bawling hard her. R-E-D face her see see.  Scream her L-O-U-D++ same ghost ugly scream recent her scream that, head inside me blast "BOOOOOOM" that. Take over devil you mind devil?? For for??"

(Pardon me, I forgot to turn on the linguistic filter for those readers who are signing impaired. Lets rerun what I just said.)

"Jaden, why are you tormenting Kisha?! You see how she's crying now?! The banshee wail she let out just now made my brain explode. What possessed you to do such a thing?"

Nothing but linguistic blindness stared back at me. This line of questioning went on for twenty minutes. No matter how I rephrased, or resigned the question, Jaden was firmly in the clutches of the demon linguistic blindness.

"Dad, he keeps telling me that Mom really isn't deaf. He says that she just acts deaf to me because I'm a girl and she only really loves boys. Spank him now Dad!"


While Kisha gave me that "do as I tell you to do, or die" stare produced by the XX chromosomes all females possess, I was transported back to a sad situation of my youth. It was one of those life altering moments all children go through.

As I've told you before, I am the only boy in my family. Being the only male child in a family does make a boy grow up as if he were an only child, when in fact he may have sisters. Such is my case. I have two older sisters.

One day, my oldest sister and I were sitting in the back of the living room. My parents...you remember my parents, Deaf Bob and Deaf Bob's Wife?...were sitting toward the front of the living room, watching television. In those days, we had just gotten our first Closed Captioning device from Sears and my parents were glued to the television. It didn't matter that the captioning in those days were filled with miss spelling, time lags which made captions of show characters' conversations appear on the screen half way through the following commercial, or that the captions were made of unintelligible symbols, characters, dashes, slashes, dots and figures more a kin to Egyptian hieroglyphics than standard English. No, in those days it was the duty of every red blooded American deafie to watch any and all television programs that were captioned, regardless of the captioning readability or quality. Many a day I was mistakenly relieved to sit in the back of the living room, thinking I need not interpret whats being said on the television due to the captions, only to have my leisure smashed by the call to duty and there I'd sit in front of the set interpreting away...never blocking the field of view of the captions whilst I toiled. Even if I was still needed to interpret, my parents still had to be able to see unobstructed the captions since they may in a split second stop being schizophrenic and start to be readable again. How I prayed to be made obsolete by the captions.

On this day, the gods of captioning were smiling down on my  little home and neither my sister or I had to interpret. I've heard it said that, "idle hands and minds are tools of the devil", and such was the case that day.

My sister looked at me and said, "Steve, you know it's such a shame Mom and Dad only pretend to be deaf because they just don't love you. They love me and don't play deaf to me."

As you can guess, this was a challenge I just just couldn't let alone. I protested soundly how this was all bunk. My sister just smiled and told me to call out to our parents, which I vigorously did. I screamed and yelled like a fiend...never did my parents' eyes ever leave the television. In triumph, I smiled back at my sister. She then held her hand up so as to cause me to pause in mid gloat, and called out to my parents in a voice half as loud as I had used and was rewarded with not one, but both my parents turning their heads to her and asking what she wanted. There are no words devised by the human mind to describe how the Earth stopped dead still in that moment for me. I just stared blankly at my sister, listening numbly as she said, "I am loved, you are not".

In vain I called out to my parents, over and over, never getting the slightest response. How could it be that I, the only male heir to all that was Leland, not be favored and loved?!

To drive her point home, my sister quietly called to my parents again and they looked to her once more. My crushing defeat was sealed.

It took me years to figure out what really had happened on that dark day. The trick my sister played on me was nothing more than a simple slight of hand trick. She knew if she got me overly confident and excited, my keen male powers of observation could be overcome and defeated. While I was distracted by my sister slyly stamped her foot, causing vibrations to crash in the highly toned rumps of my parents. ( It is a scientific fact that the buttocks of an adult deaf parent is 1000 times more sensitive to the slightest vibration caused by their children than that of the average hearing parent.)

Flashing back to the present, Kisha was still giving me the hairy eyeball and demanding I vanquish Jaden for his disrespect. In a split second I was struck down with "linguistic deafness" and rendered totally incapable of reprimanding my son. This acute "linguistic deafness" to Kisha's rants made a tidal wave of vindictive male pride wash over me. The festering wound on my ego, caused by my sister all years past, was instantly healed by my son.

Healed that is till Farah got home and set both Jaden and I straight. Amazing are the healing powers of a Mom over "linguistic blindness and deafness". The cure is but a look in her eyes.