Hobocamp

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

When we last left our dishonest dame, she was preparing herself for her biggest acting challenge to date: convincing the professionals at St Louis Speech and Hearing Center that she was partially deaf. Which she's not. Nor has she ever been.

So I awoke on the morning of my visit to SLSAHC with butterflies in my stomach but a yak in my heart. Or an elephant. Or something determined and stubborn. A mule? Maybe something bigger.

I awoke with an obese mule in my heart.

See, I had very little knowledge of how to act half-deaf. My character study was based mostly on Marlee Matlin and also on that episode of Punky Brewster and her deaf violin-playing friend who "can't hear but (she) can still feel!" I was a little fucked.

I barely touched my breakfast, which was unusual for me, as I was totally in a chunky phase. My mom sat at the dining room table with me, drinking her coffee and being FAR too attentive and sweet.

"Are you okay, darling?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Are you sure? Can I do anything for you?"

"Ma. I'm fine. Why are you acting weird?"

"I'm not being weird, sweetheart. I'm just trying to be supportive. Are you perhaps a little nervous for your test today?"

"No."

"You should have TOLD me that you were having problems hearing. I feel TERRIBLE that this went on for so long, unattended. I'm so sorry. I feel just awful."

"No big deal. I have to go to the bathroom."

As I was running off, I heard her yell "You hide your disability so well! You're truly brave!"

I. Was. So. Busted.

She knew. She absolutely knew. But my mom subscribed to the Guilt 'Em Till They're Good school of parenting, and as such I was positive she'd sit tight on this little nugget and just work it over and over until I was confessing everything wrong I've ever done in my life (I stole ben's gameboy and i hid his backpack and i didn't pick up the dog poop just left it in the yard and i said fuck at school and...)
and that wasn't going to help anyone.

But I was too far in this to back out now, plus I was still really curious as to what was going to happen, plus if I kept this up I would be missing at least 2 hours of school. So you see, there was no turning back.

When we arrived at the center, my mom started filling out paperwork while I looked at the games and entertainment they provide for kids who can't hear. The brightly colored children's books and wooden novelties held no appeal for me, so I watched some sitcom on TV that had been closed-captioned. A while later, a very friendly woman came up and touched me on the shoulder (I guess calling names out loud from behind a window wouldn't really fly with this community), startling me from my overstimulated reverie.

"Are you ready to come with me?" she asked, overenunciating so that I could read her lips should I so choose.

"Yes." With a backward glance at my mom, I allowed myself to be led into The Back. The woman looked down at me and said "Did you enjoy watching television out there?"

"Oh yes. I never knew tv could be so good." I paused for a second. "My mom doesn't accommodate me like that."

"Oh," she tsked, "you poor thing. That's awful."

"Yes," I said, too loudly. "It really is."

My confidence was steadily rising. I could totally handle this broad. Being short made me look a lot younger than I was, and I was pretty good at manipulating women of her demographic: sweet, older ladies who haven't had kids my age around in a while. I thought at the very least, they might give me a hearing aid with which I could amuse myself. I planned on using it to spy on other people's conversations. This was all fascinating and definitely going according to plan.

Then, I met Dorothy.

Dorothy was NOT in my money demographic. She was older than her 20's but younger than grandmas. She was sensibly dressed and not a fan of pleasantries. I could tell right away that she was smart. I could tell that she was used to dealing with kids who had actual hearing problems. And I could tell that she didn't like me.

Dorothy put me into a small room, probably about 9'x9'. She sat in a darkened booth on the outside of the room, not unlike the ones on cop shows. Her voice-crystal clear, brusque, and (I told myself) vaguely bitter- came over a speaker into the room.

"I'm going to say some words, and you repeat them back to me. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I do."

My friends, my feeble little mind was racing at this point. Words? Nobody had said shit about words. What happened to the beeps? I was good at the beeps. This was a whole new game. Should I pretend to only hear the first part of the word? Should I pretend to grasp the SOUND of the word, but not the specificities of it, and reply with a rhyming word? Should I feign misunderstanding the directions?

THINK, MEG! THINK! YOU HAVE TO COME UP WITH SOMETHI-

"EXCUSE ME. Meagan. Did you or did you not hear the directions?"

"What?? Did. I did! I'm sorry. Did we start already?"

"Yes. I will begin again. Please try to pay attention. I will say a word and you repeat it. Now. Baseball."

"Um."

"BASE. BALL."

saysomethingsaysomethingsaysomethingsaysomething "HOCKEY!"

Silence.

Seriously. That's what happened. That was the best I could do. I couldn't think of a rhyme for baseball (faceball? mace hall? trace y'all?) so I just screamed the name of another sport. It's official. I am an idiot.

I had displeased Dorothy. I could hear it in her voice. She gave me another shot:

"Pumpkin."

"Bathroom!" <----- WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME? "Video." "Prairie!" I'm clearly choking.

"Burger."

"HOT DOG!"

Oh. My. God. This was going horribly. I was digging myself deeper and deeper, looking more ridiculous by the minute, and I could see no way out of it. (Other than the obvious Telling The Truth, but fuck you, this ain't no sitcom. I was committed.)

Dorothy let me flop about helplessly for a few more minutes, and then she fetched me from the room and walked me (roughly, I must say) down the hall from The Back to the waiting room, where my mom was reading her Reader's Digest. They sent me into the hallway to get a drink of water, and when I returned, they finished up their conversation, shook hands, and my mom and I left.

"Goodbye, Dorothy!" I called, fake-cheerily.

"Goodbye."

In the car, my mom and I sat in silence. She knew. She had to have known. Was I about to be in enormous trouble? Was she going to make me pay a fine? WHY ISN'T SHE SAYING SOMETHING!?!?!

More silence. She just looked at me.

"What?" I barked crossly.

She smiled, tilted her head, and said "Got that out of your system, then?"

"Oh, yes ma'am. That was awful."

"Good."

"Are you mad?"

"No. Well, I was kind of mad at first because I had to take the morning off of work. But it just got funnier and funnier as you kept doing yourself in."

"Yeah. I'm glad you liked that."

"You're a crazy kid. Want to go out for breakfast before you go back to school? You didn't eat anything at home."

"Yes, please."

We went to the small diner in my neighborhood. Over pancakes, I recounted for my mother my desperate attempts to fool Dorothy, and the futility therein. She laughed until she cried.

The End

Labels: childhood, lying

posted by A Lover and a Fighter at 7:40 PM -

4 Comments:

At 3:33 PM, Deanna said…

I pray every night that my girls turn out JUST LIKE THAT! Genius. Really.
At 12:01 PM, Maxine Dangerous said…

Priceless. Dorothy sounds like a peach! ;]
At 4:08 PM, Anne said…

That story was hilarious!
At 3:09 PM, mindy said…

HOCKEY!

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

I can't stress how much that made me laugh.