Deaf Like Me

My selective hearing has given me a bad reputation for being hard of hearing. "Dad's deaf!" frequently are the words I hear after I ask My Lovely Wife or any of our three children to repeat themselves.

The reality is I do hear them. I simply don't begin paying attention until right about the time whoever is speaking has delivered the final word of his or her statement or question. It isn't that I don't care what they're saying. I do. Really, I do. It's just that, because what they're saying somehow doesn't relate to my current task at hand, it takes a few seconds for my brain to switch from whatever it was focused on to listening mode.

There are times, however, when I legitimately am unable to discern the alleged enunciations of my loved ones. I suggest these moments are, for the most part -- and resulting from no fault of my own -- not my fault. Fortunately,  the unintelligible mutterings of my family fall into several convenient categories.

Mumbling Gingers

We have a Mumbling Ginger, which I suspect is the worst sort of mumbler imaginable. Our Ginger (aka, the German) is so softly spoken he might as well be whispering into a hurricane when attempting to communicate with other human beings. This is how most conversations with the Mumbling Ginger begin:

   Him: "Mumble, mumble, mumble."
   Me: "What did you say?"
   Him: "Mumble, mumble, mumble."

It doesn't matter how many times we repeat this opening exercise, the next time the German has something to say it will escape his mouth even more quietly than the last.

The House Crosser

My Lovely Wife specializes in House Crossing. The House Crosser is any individual who begins speaking at normal conversational volume while near you and then, without warning or request for you to follow, leaves your presence and walks all the way across to the other side of the house while continuing to speak at the same volume.

House Crossers might pass any number of noise-making devices along the way -- flushing toilets, running dishwashers, barking dogs, blaring radios, washing machines in spin cycle -- it won't affect the volume at which they are speaking or the degree to which they are annoyed once they realize you are still in the bathroom brushing your teeth and haven't heard a word they've said.

The Verbositizer
The Italian, fittingly enough, has the gift of gab. He's also the kind of kid you sometimes shush when he's making noise only for the sake of making noise, which drives the volume of conversation around him higher and higher until you realize you're yelling to be heard over him.

The Italian doesn't speak, he expounds. The fact he comes by it naturally -- his Mother and I are both card-carrying expounders -- does nothing to ameliorate the effects of being bombarded by a non-stop flood of exposition on his topic of choice. Turning a deaf ear has less to do with not hearing and more to do with self-preservation. Like "Moby Dick" or "War and Peace," the Italian is brimming with tangential details that might seem important but which do not really serve the purpose of the story. If only he came with CliffsNotes.

The Speed Demon

As if it weren't enough that Our Daughter sometimes speaks so quickly her words meld together into stream-of-consciousness babble, she also tends to rise in pitch to squeak level when she does it. It's like listening to a drunk mouse that's been sucking helium.

There is no defense against this attempted form of communication short of immediate mockery, scorn and/or ridicule, followed by a request that she repeat what she said in English and at a tone preferably below that of a dog whistle.

The Non-Transitioner

This one isn't so much a hearing issue as it is a "what the heck are you talking about" issue. When speaking with My Lovely Wife, no matter how long we've been together, I am almost never prepared for the abrupt mental rupture that occurs mid-discussion.

She could be taking the conversation in an entirely new direction, or harkening back to a topic from the previous hour, day or week. Doesn't matter. In her mind, the transition is seamless. I, on the other hand, feel like a thick-brained dullard struggling to figure out how I missed the bit where we went from talking about the German's math homework to a strongly worded condemnation of mayonnaise.

The You've Got to be Kidding Me

This final one is a catch-all for any situation in which any reasonable human being would excuse any non-hearing impaired human being for asking for an unreasonably quiet utterance to be repeated. For instance, when sitting in the middle of the Museum of Natural History Cafe in Washington, DC, on a Saturday surrounded by a thousand bustling tourists all talking loudly in a variety of languages, scraping cafeteria chairs across linoleum, moving tables and yelling at their children to eat more because they just spent their lives' savings on plastic pizza and cold chicken tenders. But, should I say "What did you say?" what do I hear in response? That's right -- Dad's deaf.



2016 Mark Feggeler

I Have a Question

The Italian speaks quickly, determined to make his point and move on like a rapid-fire Nerf gun to the next on his list of discussion topics. He doesn't hold back. Ever.

He talks during the favorite song you're struggling to hear. He talks during dinner. He talks while watching television. He talks to himself in the shower. He talks when using the computer. He even talks when he's talking, sometimes tripping one conversation over another in his haste to express all the thoughts in his head.

In terms of vocabulary, the Italian has the best developed of the five people under our roof. He reads semi-voraciously -- a fourth grader reading at an eighth grade level -- and has the retention of a steel trap, so his stockpiled arsenal of words is varied and vast.

The German is more reserved. He often assumes a distant role, allowing others to take the lead in the doing while he absorbs through observation. No less intelligent than his twin brother, he is deceptively inquisitive. Make no mistake: his silence and the faraway look in his eyes are a facade.

When he does speak it is with great deliberation and lengthy pauses. Whether due to his dyslexia, or simply to a naturally laconic nature, discussions with the German require patience and assistive prompting when he's searching for the correct word or the best way to express a thought. On those rare occasions the German has something to say, it's important to brace yourself for the conversational equivalent of something akin to a cross between twenty questions and Mad Libs.

There are two ways in which these conversations begin. More often than not, he'll walk quietly up to you and state "I have a question."

When this happens, there is only a fifty-fifty chance of being posed a question to which he does not know the answer. It can often be a thinly veiled ploy to draw you into a conversation, or to get you to explain basic details, about something you've already discussed.

His other frequent conversation starter arrives in the form of a question. "Guess what?" the German will ask and wait for you to inquire.

Sixty percent of the time he will enlighten you about some nugget of information he learned during the course of his day. Thirty percent of the time he will recall some shared experience to reminisce about it with you. Ten percent of the time, by the time you respond to his "Guess what," he will have forgotten what it was he wanted to tell you.

But don't worry when that happens. If you're still in the mood for a conversation, all you have to do is find the Italian. Just follow the sound of his voice.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Shoechuks & Other Necessary Things

The Italian's strength is talking, very often to the point of mental fatigue and hearing impairment on the part of the listener.

He might invent terminology here and there, but not in the way in which the German does, substituting a made up word for one he can't recall. The German is legendary for inventing the word "shniggle" when he meant to say "jiggle," and also for his meandering explanations when he simply can not find the right word. His is a unique and joyous gift.

The Italian's use of language is precise. He uses complex words to convey complex ideas. His imaginary words are deliberately and intentionally crafted.

Like "shoechuks," for example.

In case you've never heard of them, not only is shoechuk an entirely new word created by my son, the Italian, it also is a revolutionary advancement in footwear weaponry.

The shoechuk was made possible by our purchase of a large painting to hang in our family room. The unframed painting had special cardboard corner protecters that were held together by long elastic bands. Removed from the painting, the Italian found he could cram one of the protective corners over his heel and another over his toes to create a "shoe" of sorts. The elastic band served as a body-length shoe suspender.

The best part -- and the reason warmonger Dick Cheney ought to consider funding a grant for further research and development -- is that in one sorta, kinda almost swift move the Italian can grab the band off his shoulder, yank the "shoe" off his foot, and swing the two sections of cardboard around like lethal nunchucks.

Okay, maybe more like a pair of non-lethal clown nunchuks made out of bits of reinforced paper and leftover underwear elastic, but nunchuks just the same.

Every now and then, however, the Italian surprises us with a slip into his brother's area of expertise, confidently using the wrong word in the wrong situation. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it's a thing of genuine beauty.

Last Friday night, as we sat shivering on the metal seating of Our Daughter's high school football field, the Italian suggested we purchase one of the blankets being sold by the Pinecrest High School marching band boosters. To stress the potential value of the purchase, he pointed at people nearby who were draped in a blanket.

He said: "Look, it's P-encrusted!"

Now, I know what he meant. He could have said imprinted or emblazoned but he didn't. Actually, you have to hand it to him. A pee-encrusted blanket probably would do a great job keeping you warm on a cold night, at least for the first few minutes, and providing you don't mind the smell.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Voices In My Head? Not.

We have three children. They are all wonderful people in their own ways. We love them unconditionally.

One of them, the Italian, is an inquisitive and highly intelligent child. There isn't a single discussion held in his presence during which he will not ask a question, or maybe ten.

Sometimes his questions stem from the annoying habit most of us practice from time to time when we are only kind-of listening to the other people and need to ask them to repeat something they've just said. Most of the time with the Italian, however, his questions are related to his desire to be educated.

For example, last week over breakfast one morning my Lovely Wife was talking to me about her retainer. The word "retainer" had barely finished tumbling out of her mouth when the Italian interrupted to ask: "What is a retainer and what does it do?" A fair question, but his serious expression and the fact he asked it like Larry King grilling a politician (as much as Larry King can grill) made us chuckle.

Not only does the Italian ask lots of questions, he also talks without stopping. He is enamored with the sound of his voice and believes everyone else also should be. If he isn't bending your ear he's talking to himself. If he isn't talking to himself he's mimicking funny voices he has heard on television shows or in movies. If he isn't mimicking cartoon voices he's singing his favorite song to you, or his siblings, or the dog. I'm often amazed we have any idea at all what our other children's voices sound like.

Every parent has those days when we say, "I'm going to change my name, because if I hear 'Dad' one more time I'm going to lose it."

Unfortunately for our other son, the German, he must feel the same way about his name. I'll wager if I counted the number of times in one day the Italian says the German's name, it would reach quadruple digits. Observing them throughout the course of a typical week has convinced me that Germany might not really have wanted to start World War II, they just needed to get away from their incessantly babbling neighbors to the south.

"Hey Germany. Germany! Hey Germany. Do you want to play on the Wii? Germany! Do you want to play on the Wii?"

"Not right now, Italy."

"But Germany, you can be player one. Come on, Germany. Germany! You can be player one but I want the black controller. Germany, can I have the black controller? Germany?"

"I don't want to play right now, Italy."

"Germany, you can be player one! Come on, Germany!"

"Look, Italy, I can't play on the Wii right now. I have to... I have to go check on Poland! Oh yeah, Poland. You go play the Wii and I'll let you know when I get back from Poland."

The biggest trouble used to come when the Italian and the German were in the same class at school and even before then during preschool years. Both would have had the same experiences during the day, and they both wanted to tell us about their shared experiences when we picked them up. The German, in his slow and halting way, would start talking about what the class did in the school garden. Halfway through, during an inevitable pause as the German searched for the right words, the Italian would finish the story in a matter of seconds. Big German tears would flow...

The boys just turned nine, and if Our Daughter is any indication, we will blink and they will have turned into teenagers. If they go the typical teenage boy route, then we should expect them both to turn sullen, moody and quiet.

I think I can handle the sullen and moody if it means I'll get a few years of quiet.



ⓒ 2010 Mark Feggeler