Growing Up

Ya know its funny, one thing I get asked a lot is, “What was it like growing up when you were younger in your house?” And I ask things like, “Whadya mean?” and they are like, “Did you get in trouble like normal kids do?” and so it begins from there.

I don’t know what the fascination is but some people seem to think that if your deaf, mute, blind, mentally challenged or in some way disabled, that you lead a life where you can get away with murder. I am going to spend some time in this blog telling you that it is not even close to the truth.

I may not have been able to speak or hear when I was younger but that did not stop me from doing the stupid things that kids do. I recall very well the time I was in the basement lighting matches and then putting them out by throwing them in the sink. I thought nobody would know until my mom came downstairs and had this look on her face that told me she was either about to have a coronary or was going to burst. She signed a bunch of things at me in a very angry way and the next thing I knew I was being sent to my room. I knew I was in for some serious hell cuz being sent to my room was usually just a lead up to something worse. Sure enough, 5 minutes or so later my mom walked in. She sat on the edge of my bed and signed to me how worried I made her, that I could have set myself or the house on fire or worse. She signed that I knew better than to play with matches and that I should never do that again. I knew I was in serious crap. The next thing I knew, she grabbed a hold of me and before I could register what was going on, I was over her knee, pants down, and learning life’s lessons the hard way. That’s right folks, just because I was deaf and mute did not mean that I was immune from being spanked. Its funny how people think that I would have been able to get away with murder HAHA

The fun though does not stop there. Just because you cant talk does not mean that your parents cant catch you swearing. I remember very well this one time that I was in some heated argument with my Mom and she was just as wound up as I was. Well, she turned away and so I flipped her the middle finger out of frustration but I was not quite fast enough…she turned around and caught the tail end of it. Well that was not going to go over too well. Before I continue, as you know, when you lose a sense the others tend to be stronger. I am not sure that taste is affected but I can tell you with a straight face, when Mom caught me flipping her the bird, it was a short dragging of me to the bathroom at which point I will never forget the god awful taste that a freshly unwrapped bar of Ivory soap leaves in your mouth. For five or so minutes I sat there well she signed to me about how rude it was to use dirty language. All the while the damn soap was melting in my mouth.

Now, I have to ask you, faithful readers, does it make any sense at all to wash out the mouth of a kid who cant even speak? Does that not seem really dumb to you? My argument later was that she should have washed my hands since it was my “dirty hands” that did all the talking. She did not agree with me but to me it only stands to reason. My mouth had nothing to do with it so why wash it out with soap?

Anyway, I just thought I would share some of the crazy things people have asked me around what happened to me when I was younger. In my next post I will cover some of the other more common questions I get. From there I will try to update you on my most recent round of treatment. Here is a hint, its called radiostatic therapy.

As always, thanks for reading, I hope you continue to enjoy my writing

LiveSTRONG!