my aunt in the hospital

I wanted to take a few minutes to make note of this story so that someday, when scotch has killed all my brain cells, my kid will remember that his dad wasn't always an invalid who peed himself and did, at least on some days, have a good sense of humor.

Back, not this past Saturday but the Saturday before, my dad was in town for a baby party, a funeral for an uncle I didn't know I had (long story) and to visit my aunty Toyo (my grandmother's sister) who fell, broke her back and was in the hospital. As I write this, I think she's still in the hospital.

Now for this story to make sense, you have to understand that my aunty Toyo is incredibly hard of hearing. Even with the hearing aids your normal talking is like whispering. And unfortunately at this occasion she broke her hearing aid. Actually she shoved a battery into the hearing aid casing and long story...well, long story long because it's my goddamn story and you're not reading it anyway so I'll make it as long as a want...she wasn't hearing.

So on this occasion where nothing short of an M80 blast would be audible, we had a notepad and a pen so that we could at least communicate with her. I make it a habit to always carry a notepad and pen. Something that Di got me into doing. She uses a voice recorder but I don't like it because it runs out of batteries. But I digress. We had a notepad and pen and would write stuff to her, ask if she wanted anything, let her know that the hearing aids would be fixed on Monday because nobody was open Saturday evening, etc.

And at first things were okay. Not ideal but okay. We'd jot something, she'd put on her reading glasses and respond back. It wasn't quick but it worked. I mean I work in a world of T1's and DS3's and 40 Mbps DSL service and SONET based fiber networks so 'fast' is a relative term and this wasn't thrilling, but it worked.

And at some point in this conversation I guess she just decided that fair is fair. And even though all of us could hear just fine and we were writing so that SHE could RECEIVE messages. She grabbed the pen and started writing down her responses instead.

Keep in mind that this woman is hard of hearing and when she talks it's pretty loud. I'm frankly surprised she doesn't lose her voice often, but I guess it's like singing practice for vocalists. So when instead of actually saying her responses, which the rest of us were perfectly capable of hearing, she starts jotting down her responses on the same notepad, I was dumbfounded. It was a 19'th century AIM session complete with chat history logs. And I found it utterly hilarious.

Was there a valid reason for me to find it so funny? probably not. But then again, she couldn't hear me laugh my ass off about it so, what's the harm? I wasn't laughing at her directly, just the situation. And I just couldn't stop laughing.

Now this may not seem like such a funny thing to you. And it's not super funny. But at the time, in the context of the situation, it was goddamn hilarious. To be sitting in a room with a lady who effectively broke her back but so badly did NOT want to be in a hospital that the nurses wouldn't leave the walker in her room for fear that she would try to escape; to be sitting in a room with three other people perfectly capable of hearing just fine...Well okay so my dad is going deaf but still...and to have this old lady writing responses back to us on a notepad. It was enough to make me laugh to the point of coughing. And even if you weren't there, you've got to admit it's still funnier than Dane Cook.

So that's the story. The short story that could have been told in a paragraph, now dragged on to a page because I can't tell a short story. The story of having a nearly deaf woman write back to me when I asked if she needed anything because...well just because she could write back to me I suppose. And the story of how even a hospitalized woman who can't hear and can't read without her glasses, still has better handwriting than me.