Laughing Terror

I was just pondering what has to be the most diabolical chemical compound ever concocted in the history of the world. The unimaginable explosive power of this compound is mind-boggling. Splitting of atoms pale in comparison to the cataclysmic combination of a sudden fright and pregnancy hormones. I kid you not, an unforeseen fright to a pregnant woman has enormous effect. Now add in "Deaf pregnant woman" and the explosive power is astronomical.

It is true, the greatest joy in a young CODA's life is that of terrorizing of deaf people. Seriously, nothing can make a CODA erupt into uncontrollable, rib splitting, knee slapping, breath robbing, laughter like the scaring of an unsuspecting deaf person. No ordinary, run of the mill scare will work either, mind you. I'm talking about a full out, hair standing on end, dancing on tip toe, total loss of bladder control, face reddening, clutching at the air, shrieking like a steam whistle, faint inducing scare. What I ask you, can be as delightfully gratifying as that for a young CODA?! ( Having grown older and more mature, I have naturally put aside this juvenile amusement of my youth. No, now I rigorously and strictly constrain my terrorizing instinct to that of scaring my wife. )

I remember a time, during the early days of my marriage with Farah, back before all my brain cells were taken hostage by a pink tinted world, with pink colored logic. ( This would also be a time when "pink" was merely a word denoting a color and not a bewildering and intimidating reality of my life. Nothing I tell you, nothing, can stupefy a grown man like the birth of a daughter. ) It was during Farah's last pregnancy, I so innocently embraced the romantic ideal of not knowing the gender of the baby, thereby rending myself blissfully ignorant of the upheaval our lives were to take on one early spring evening when I came eye to eye with volatile reaction terror has on pregnancy hormones.  ( I sit here shuddering as I recall the three month incessant groveling I had to preform before I could even think about sleeping in my bed again. Believe you me, no one can grovel like a bedroom banished, newly wed husband. )

The unfortunate incident happened on an early spring evening as I was headed home after interpreting at a local university. Still being in the hormone induced euphoric dementia of  newly wed-hood, my lovely young bride and I exchanged texts, dripping with nauseatingly sweet gigglings about how we pined away the day, yearning to gaze longingly and lovingly into the other's eyes. ( If I hear one more fake vomiting sound, I will be forced, in self defence mind you, to add more explicit and detailed romantic remembrances to this blog. ) 

Just before I pulled out of the parking lot, Farah sent me very romantic reminder that the next morning was trash day. ( I will have you naysayers know, it is a scientifically proven fact that a newly wed man's brain is so hyped up on what biologist have labeled "Whoopee Mania", that even a text about garbage day is romantic. It's a condition unique to recently married men, where enzymes are released, causing a increase to the wildly inflamed imagination of  a hormonally new husband. ) Without delay, I sent back a text that was so sweet I have no doubt her eyes got cavities just from reading it.

At this point in our story, let me take a moment to explain an important fact about the male mind to those of you who, with no fault of your own, happen to be female. The male mind is a dazzlingly complex organism. It is home to many different and diverse personality trait. Each personality trait in the male brain has an individual and unique voice, governing a separate activity and/or emotion. All these personality traits mix together to create the wonderful, brilliant, and all be it humble,  men you all know and love. Now, to make all this even more convoluted, since ASL is the native language of most CODA's, it makes perfect sense that all the personality traits in a male CODA's mind sign and do not speak.  ( You can cease the frenzied typing of texts to Farah. I can assure you there is no need to alert her to the questionable state of my mental stability. While I'm sure you are all well meaning, let me point out that if your read my blog, your mental stability is equally in doubt.  Besides, Farah is fully aware of my questionable mental stability all along, yet she married me anyway. )

Arriving home, I soon found myself engaged in a spirited conversation with one the voices in my head, who happens to be a groundskeeper, of Scottish decent, wearing a kilt made of the Royal Stuart tartan. We were chatting about the state of the lawn and how the hedges needed a good trimming. This kilted part of my personality emerges anytime I survey the vast lands on which Leland Manor is built. ( For those of you who think you're one step ahead of me, let me assure you that this kilted, groundskeeper personality trait does indeed sign ASL to me in a thick Scottish accent.) As we rounded the side of the house, still talking about the landscaping, there came a distant, nagging, hand waving commotion from the back of my mind. Since I was busy with the kilted, Scottish groundskeeper in the front of my brain, little attention was given to the wild Voice of Doom in the back of my brain.

Then suddenly, all in a flash, the little Scottish groundskeeper of my personality was forcefully grabbed, thrown feet over head... ( Let me tell you, when a little Scottish groundskeeper gets tossed feet first into the air, there is little question as to what he has on under his kilt. )... and landed with a reverberating thud somewhere in the murky depth of my mind. Next thing I know, the Voice of Doom in up in my mental face signing his message of disaster. Trust me, with the manic signing and pointing made by the Voice of Doom, not to mention the disconcerting and unsettling mental image of the upturned kilted Scottish groundskeeper, I had a bit of a problem focusing my attention on the darkened, very pregnant figure emerging from back door of my house. The Voice of Doom's signing exploded into vivid, blinding colors in my brain, "This is what I've been trying to warn you about you dolt!"

It was at this point that the world suddenly stopped and I was left looking at the back of my wife. Nothing seemed to be moving at all, even those annoying tiny bug that buzz around your head by the millions during spring evenings were stopped, frozen in mid air. I was at a mental crossroads, logic told me I had one of two choices, both were leading to unavoidable disaster.  Do I reach out and touch my wife so she knows I am here? If I do that, inevitably laughter will pour forth from me when she screams and I will be shunned till after the baby is born and has turned 18 years old. Or, do I just stand here with the neighbors billion watt security light, the security light that ironically is suppose to discourage lurking strangers like me form loitering around our backyards,  wait for Farah to turn around, see my darkened shape looming in front of her due to the billion watt security light causing me to be silhouetted to my wife's eyes? If I choose to just stand there, once Farah turns, screams and dances around in abject terror, the inevitable laughter will spew forth from me and I am shunned  ( For those of you Deaf-Impaired people reading this blog and are yelling at your screens, "why don't you just didn't call out to her you idiot!", let me remind you Farah is deaf. It is physiologically impossible for me to yell with a sound loud enough to make her aware of my standing behind her. DUH! ) Logically, I had no hope, this was a lose/lose situation. All I could do was stand there like a man, put on the blindfold as I await my impending state of shunned.

As quickly as the reality had stopped, it unfroze into an excruciatingly slow motion of Farah beginning to turn, stand straight up, and see my silhouetted figure standing before her. Still in slow motion, I was able to observe her face painfully distort into a look of shear terror with her mouth opening. Up to this point, the slow motion spectacle before me had all been in silence, but with the opening of her mouth, sound was suddenly reintroduced to my world and it took all the strength I had to remain standing upright as the inhuman, banshee like wailing hit me with the full auditory force equal to an atomic blast, square in the face! ( I have read since, that Farah's scream registered an 8 on the Richter Scale, as measured by the United States Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado. I kid you not. ) Then, as predicted, waves of uncontrollable and undeniable laughter sprang from my very core, rumbled up and out of my mouth. Never in my life had I been racked by such convulsive laughter.

"WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!" bellowed Farah in my face. I leaned forward into the full force of her auditory punch. ( Have you seen the video of Astronauts during G Force test, spinning around and around, faster and faster, with the skin on their faces being pulled back till it looks like their skulls are about to be skinned? That's what my face looked like as Farah's scream pealed my skull like an orange.) I stared directly into my wife's mouth and watched the little bit of skin that hangs down in the back of her throat swing wildly as she continued this monumental scream. Seeing this just made the mirth running wild in my brain kick into overdrive and I was blinded by a water fall of hilarious tears.

And then it suddenly stopped. Much to my relief, when the monumental scream stopped, my facial tissues snapped back and I was able to stop laughing and breath again. Seriously, I was starting to get worried whether Farah may have done permanent damage to m y spleen with all the laughing I was forced to endure.

Just as suddenly as she has stopped screaming, Farah quickly sucked in more air, impressively inflation her lungs to maximum size, and broke out into a second round of "WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH". All the time,  through this second round of screaming and knee weakening laughter, I had various thoughts flash through my mind like; "Seriously, again?!", "What is the average response time for the local police? The neighbors had to have called them by now with all the screaming.", "I wonder if the baby is deaf, I don't see a scream induced "Alien" like head emerging from her belly." and "Way to go manly man! The fierceness of my incredible imposing Charles Atlas physique has made a world record scream erupt out of your wife. High five to me!"

My self admiration was only cut short by the realization of silence. A quick glance to see the jovial, chipper face I had grown accustom to seeing. No, now I was looking into the malevolent mask of liberated, unrestrained, and unentertained pregnancy hormones. Death is the only synonym to describe the look that looked back at me from her heretofore amorous eyes. ( The mere thought now makes me nearly wet myself with fear! ) Then I saw it out of the corner of my eye, sudden movement of her hand, and my body spontaneously tensing for what surely had to be an almighty, eye balls ricocheting inside my skull, slap. Closing my eyes, for what could surely be the last time in my life, remembering all the stories I had read saying no man ever sees the bullet with his name on it, yet I just had seen mine and it looked strikingly like my fiercely beautiful wife's hand. I stood up straight, shoulders back, waiting for what could only be a life ending sting...but there was nothing.

The gray matter in my head suddenly sprang to life. One side of my brain calculated the odds that I could some how dive away to safety, while the other side of my brain started to wonder where the incoming cranium smashing whack had gone. Then I heard it...at first I was sure it was an hallucination from my fevered brain. How could there be laughter at this moment? Yet, there it was in my ears...her captivating, irresistibly seductive  laughter.  Instantly I knew she was cunningly trying to draw me into a trap, disarming me moments before I got the whack of death only an enraged pregnant deaf wife can deliver.  But she just kept laughing, bursting rays of hope into my troubled soul. With great trepidation I opened first one eye, then the other, only to see Farah bent over in a fit of laughter. What I thought was her raising her hand to slap me was in reality her reaching to get her buzzing cell phone. As I stood before her, eyes as big as softballs, all I saw was Farah  with her cell phone in her had, eyes weeping from laughing. She had just received and read my now blessed, lifesaving  message about getting the trash when I got home. I did the only thing a man could have done at that moment, I fell to my knees in grateful relief, knowing instinctively that the closer I was to the ground, the better chance to bear crawl away to safety, lest the pregnancy hormones take another unexplainable turn in mood and the blood letting resume.

Now don't ask me to explain how a pregnant wife can be ready to rip her husband  limb from limb like a ferocious beast one moment, only to be weak from laughter and hugging that same stunned and befuddled husband a split second later. ( As a point of fact, I heard that Albert Einstein was working on this mind boggling mystery up till the moment he passed away without success. Some say, and I happen to believe, it was the undecipherable enigma of pregnancy hormones that did the great thinker in.  ) All I know is that all men who have ever lived, are living, or ever shall live, should be eternally grateful for this mystery. No man should ever endeavor to solve this most perplexing of mysteries. No, take it from a man who knows first hand, we men are just to accept it and be eternally grateful for the unpredictability of pregnancy hormones.

Straddling Giggles

Public Schools, the down fall of many a good CODA. I kid you not. Public Schools are a minefield of unexploded cultural missteps. Unsuspecting, naive CODA's innocently cross the line of proper behavior in a hearing setting. Norms and mores that are perfectly acceptable in a home, centered around and governed by Deaf Culture, are totally out of place with in the cookie cutter, button down world of American public education as administered by hearing educators.

I can hear you all, poo pooing this. Rolling your eyes and shaking your heads in disbelief. Thinking to yourself that surely this man is deliberately embellishing and exaggerating his point. Nay say I. All I have said is true, pure and simple.

Just the other day, Kisha, my little Amazon Princess, came home horrified and beside herself due to one such social fopaux. There she sat, face all scrunched up in deep thought in our living room. Eyes red and puffed from where tears had been.

Being the good father I am, I paused in my tracks before she saw me, quickly studied the image of her in such raw emotion. (Boo and hiss all you want, I'm a father and unchecked, raw emotion saps any and all courage I have. Sure, if this was one of my sons, I'd give them the Dad look, tell them to suck it up, punch their shoulder and all would be fine. No messy emotions to clog a male moment. But no, this was unplumbed, unfathomable, unmaleness emotion from my daughter. Leaving me unnerved, unintelligent, and uncoherent.) My eyes darting around the room whilst my mind flipped through various mental maps of how I could make it though the living room and to the stairs without her seeing me. Just as I was making my final choice of which way was best to dash for safely, I started to draw back and spring forward in a near sprint to the stairs. Out of nowhere, I was blindsided and tripped up by the arched right eyebrow over the eyes I had suddenly spied with my peripheral vision.  So caught up was I in the fight or flight instinct, that I had not noticed Farah sitting across the room from Kisha. I nearly fell on my face in a vain and clumsy attempt to regain my balance, ineptly trying to appear cool and innocent to my wife as only a husband can do in those moments.

There I stood, looking at Farah, my eyebrows arched impossibly high in mock innocence, deftly avoiding direct eye contact. There sat Farah, looking directly at me, her single eyebrow arched and mouth pulled up on one side. (Let me take a moment to point out the sheer force of a wife's gaze while communicating non-verbally her will and the complete inability of a husband to do anything but his wife's will,when he is caught in just such a gaze. It's staggering...simply staggering...This is a power best used solely for good.) Try and I might, my eyes were drawn to her stare. My inner Manness screamed in totally panic, "In the name of all that is good man, do not look directly in her eyes, or all hope is lost...NOOOOOOOOO...", yet, unable to escape the undeniable pull of her feminine gaze... I did just that. I looked directly into those all powerful, brown, almond shaped eyes...all the while, my inner Manness wept inconsolably. (How do wives do this I ask you?! How do they get this power over their husbands?! It's simply not right.) Not a word was spoken as I turned to Kisha, braced myself, and asked her what had happened at school.

Slowly, Kisah turned her head and looked me dead in the eye and explained that it had been the single most embarrassing day of her kindergarten career. You see, for the last several days, Kisha's teacher, Mrs Pundit, had been working hard on the proper way students are to get the attention of a teacher when they wanted to speak. All the students practiced raising their hands and waiting quietly, patiently to be called on by the teacher. Over and over the kindergarteners were drilled in this indoctrination of mass hypnosis. That is everyone but Kisha. Oh, don't get me wrong, she did well when the class as a whole practiced raising their hands, but once the constraints of mob rule were removed and Kisha once again could give free rein to her independent mind, a brilliant genetic virtue found in the female line of our family, she reverted to old comfortable custom of pounding her foot on the floor and waving her hand at whomever she wanted. Mrs. Pundit, clearly astonished, waited for her to stop. Kisha, who being a kindergartener, continued to stomp the floor and wave her hand and all the while had permitted her mind to wonder to the next interesting thought, without realize the error of her ways. By the time Kisha's attention had returned to her constant foot pounding and hand waving, the entire gaggle of kindergarteners had slowly backed away from her, leaving her as the center of attention.  Normally, being the center of attention is a good thing, one that Kisha enjoys to a great extent, but not at that moment. Mrs. Pundit tilted her head and asked Kisha what she had been doing? In her very best kindergarten anthropologist way, Kisha explained the time honored custom, and socially acceptable way, of gaining the attention of those living in her home, when they weren't  looking at you. All was going fine with her explanation...that is till she add at the very end, "...how else am I suppose to get people's attention in my home?! Duh! Half of them are deaf". After the prolonged  laughing from her classmates subsided, Mrs Pundit thanked Kisha for the impromptu diversity awareness training and as tactfully as she could manage, Mrs Pundit  pointed out that what Kisha had been doing was perfectly understandable and appropriate at home, but there were no deaf people in her kindergarten class and thus the foot pounding and have waving was unnecessary.More laughter erupted from the other kindergarteners.

After watching a very dramatic rendition of the unfortunate day's events,  I'll admit the uncontrolled laughter I let out with may not have been the best parenting tool to use at that moment. (Hey, I'll have you know, it's part of CODA culture to laugh uproariously at another CODA when the have unintentionally shown their deafness to unknowing NERDA's in a very embarrassing way. We laugh from the shared experience, we have all been there and done that at some point in our lives.) When I finally got my laughter under control, I sat in silence, all the while starting  to sweat buckets  as both Farah and Kisha just stared at me. The pressure was on and I was expected to share some words of wisdom to set the world right for my little Amazon Princess. Quickly, I pulled from the back of my mind the story about the day I got my first in school detention. Kisha eyes got wider and wider as I told her about the first day back to school from summer vacation when I walked into Mrs Mildred's classroom, took one look at her and said, "Man Mrs. Mildred, you sure have gotten F-A-T over the summer". No one had explained to me, while it was expected and correct to be blunt with deaf people, that hearing people didn't appreciate such untempered honesty. Swiftly, the unapologetic hand of justice swooped me up and placed me into the chair of correction. A chair I was to become all too familiar with in the Principal's office as repeatedly ran head long into the expectations of the hearing world.

Once I finished talking, I was greeted by the marvelous sounds of  my daughter's laughter. Shaking her head, Kisha walked over to me, hugged me and giggled some more.

Giggle all she wanted at her Dad. Whether she knew it or not that day, she had the best response a CODA can give to the duel nature of our lives.  Giggling is the best response for the day when reality moves in and a young CODA has to learn how to straddle the span between the culture they love and the culture they have to live. A CODA's life is spent straddling between the homey, comfortable, coziness Deaf Culture holds for CODA's, and the foreign,ill-fitting, disconnectedness of hearing culture with all the hard lessons it brings.

As Kisha walked away from me, she stopped and looked at Farah. With all the loving, tender, warmth a young CODA learns from their home culture, she signed,  "Don't worry Mommy, I feel better now." She looked at me, shook her head and started to giggle a different giggle. This time it was the giggle of an older CODA, a giggle of experience.

Continuing to giggle, she signed, "I feel much better now I know Dad was way dumber than me when he was little."