I don't enjoy being deaf, you know

So I made taco soup (yum) for dinner last night, and when I was on the phone with my mom in the afternoon, I invited her to dinner. At first, she wasn't going to make it because she had to take her car to be looked at. But then she called about half an hour before dinner and told me if we were still eating at 6, she'd be here. So mom's coming to dinner.

The next thing you know, mom, A, and I are sitting at the table with our soup (T won't touch the stuff because of the beans, so he had alternate dinner). We're chatting and it's all going well until A gets mad at me (again) because I had to ask her to repeat herself. Due to the nature of my job, I have a bit of hearing loss. It's not too bad, but it's mostly in the higher-pitched frequencies, and unfortunately my loss seems to be centered around the pitch of A's voice. Coupled with the fact that she does not speak loudly, A bears the brunt of my hearing issues. While this was going on, mom looks at us and says, in her best impersonation of my late grandmother, "I don't enjoy being deaf, you know." Cracked me up. My grandmother was a real character, and I miss her a lot.

Later, after we've finished eating, mom and I are discussing the mechanic she took her car to. She found him via one of my brother's and he's (a) honest and (b) competent, and she says I should take my car to him if it needs work. I actually do have an issue with my car, but it really only affects the AC, and I've been living without it for a year. In my car, there's one belt that controls the power steering and the AC, and about a year ago it broke, scaring the crap out of me. My oldest brother was able to replace the belt, but he didn't have the tools or the expertise to make sure it was tensioned properly, so if I turn on the AC now, there's a really bad squealing sound and a smell that's less then pleasant. So I don't mess with the AC, and the only real downside of that is that sometimes I have to either sweat or keep the windows open on the freeway. It's really not that big a deal most of the time.

I explained all this to mom, and she agreed with me that having AC in the car is more of a luxury (particularly in this part of the world) than a necessity. Then I said so is having "central air in the house." What my mother heard, however, was "a sexual hair in your ass." She looked at me, all horrified, and practically screamed "What!" at me. I repeated myself, she explained what she heard, and then we both laughed until we cried. I'm still laughing the next day. Mom was terribly embarassed and covered her face and asked me not to tell A. So I waited until after she was gone, and then I told A. Some things are too good not to share.

I may not enjoy being deaf, you know, but sometimes my family's deafness is amusing.

Currently reading : Moon Called by Patricia Briggs.