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.
_______
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.
------
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.
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.
_______
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.
------
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.
A hurricane in Kent, Ohio? Really??? You sure you're not referring to a tornado?
ReplyDeleteSo much for a tempest in a teapot. (re: Willa's important biz)
That's technology for ya. ;)
Ann_C