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.
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.
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