Hobocamp

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Just felt like telling a story from my childhood...

Part I of II

Do you remember how in grade school, you had hearing tests every year? They were kind of annoying, because there was a lot of waiting around in line, but I also found them fascinating. For those of you who went to schools where they didn't care if you could hear or not, these tests went like this: you put on these big Princess Leah headphones, and they played a beep tone at different pitches and decibels. When you heard the beep, you raised your hand. I guess if you could hear a certain amount of beeps, you were fine. If you missed a few, you were Deef or whatever.

When I was in first grade, I watched the kid in front of me, Donald*, take his hearing test. I guess he fucked it up royally because they finished with him pretty quickly, and then led him by the hand to another lady at a desk, who took his name and phone number. She said, very seriously, "Don't worry. We will call your mother and she can take you there now. Don't be scared." But Donald knew better. He saw that he had every reason to be scared. Because clearly, we all decided later that day on the playground, they were taking him to some sort of special hearing-impaired child lab facility where they'd do experiments on him and he'd be different for the rest of his life and never have friends and poop his pants in public every day. Terrifying.

However, I have to admit that I was kind of curious as to what happened to Donald when he was led away. He was back in class the next day, but he wouldn't talk about what happened at the lab. I decided to find out for myself what happens when you fail the hearing test. I had all these visions of writing tell-alls and using the profits to create some sort of almost-deaf-kid safe haven with blackboards and talking computers as far as the eye could see. I'd be a hero! So with more patience than I have ever demonstrated in my life, I waited 364 days until it was time for our hearing tests again. Now that I was in second grade, I was even more confident in my ability to fake being deaf. (A smart kid would have started planning this charade more than 5 minutes in advance- perhaps laying the ground with some classroom interaction consisting of "What? What??? I'm sorry, I can't hear the directions. Wish there was some way to tell if my hearing was impaired or not... oh well," but I was not that kid. Shocking.)

I stood in line and watched as my classmates were called to different little booths (alphabetically by last name) and I waited, trying to finalize important details of my master plan. I decided that there was no way they'd believe I was completely deaf (duh) so I thought it best to concentrate my fake impairment to my left ear. At last, my name was called. I headed to a booth in the far corner of the cafegymatorium with the teacher's assistant who was brought in for this task. (Looking back, I realize that she probably was 22 at the oldest. At the time, though, she was a formidable obstacle.)

I sat down and allowed the giant headphones to be placed on my head. To lure her into a false sense of security, I tried to look as adorable as possible, which to me at the time meant smiling aimlessly while bobbing my head around like babies did on television commercials. The teacher smiled back, but probably mostly out of sympathy for the clearly developmentally delayed child sitting wretchedly on the seat in front of her. Ah, well. I welcomed her pity. I could use it to further my cause.

The test began. I dutifully raised and lowered my hand in cadence with the beeps in my right ear. When it was time for the left, I did nothing. She pressed the button again, and a louder beep sounded. I remained still. She frowned, concerned. I smiled benignly. She pressed the button one more time- this time, loud enough that the beep stabbed me in my brain- and I remained mute, staring straight ahead. Small Teacher was flustered.

"Oh my," she said. "You don't hear any of that?"

"Well, I heard the first ones you did. Then they just sort of stopped coming."

"Okay. Okay, sweetheart. You stay here just one minute for me, okay? I'm going to go get Mrs. Barkley to come visit with you."

"Okay!" Sucker.

Mrs. Barkley came over, checked the headphones to make sure they were working, and then got down to business. Bitch didn't play, either. She played several more tones, the last of which was so ear-splittingly loud that I could hear it in my OTHER ear. Small Teacher winced when Mrs. Barkley did this. I remained strong, though, and didn't react.

Then it happened. I was taken by the hand and led to the desk. The woman called my mom. That night, when I went home, my mom told me that I was going to go to school late the next day, because I had an appointment at

Bum ba BUMMMMMMMM!

The St Louis Center for Speech and Hearing. That night when I went to bed, I realized that I was able to effectively plan part 1 of my mission based on my experience the year prior. Part 2 was undoubtedly going to be more challenging because I was going in blind. This was going to be even more difficult than I'd planned.

To be continued...

*Not his real name. His real name was Brandon.

Labels: childhood, family, lying

posted by A Lover and a Fighter at 10:47 AM -

2 Comments:

At 12:33 PM, Maxine Dangerous said…

As I try desperately to cover up laughing by coughing (which is, of course, oh so convincing), I remind myself to not:

1. Read Hobocamp while at work; and
2. Not drink Starbucks while reading. I almost ended up with coffee in my lungs.

Can't wait for Part II. :]
At 3:01 PM, mindy said…

I knew a kid named Donald in grade school. He used to chase all the girls around the playground with boogers on his fingers. I think Donald was a little "off". I felt bad for him so I'd stand up for him and tell the other kids "Don't make fun of Donald, he can't help it." Then Donald put his boogers on me and he was on his own, little asshole.