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.