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I suppose there are two kinds of people in the world: those who deliberate whether they should say “pardon me” after passing gas, and those who are deaf.
A thread on farting while deaf
A thread on farting while deaf
My deaf family has a favorite game we play in the car. When we smell something fart-like wafting around, we immediately extend a thumb on our foreheads while holding the palm open & perpendicular to the face. The last one to do it is officially designated as the guilty party. (1)
This tends to be precisely when our deaf son starts wagging an accusatory finger and shaking his head in disapproval with the glee of a, well, 5-year-old thinking about bodily functions. (2)
Unless, of course, he is the last one with a thumb on his forehead. Then he will inevitably shake his head profusely and swear he is not the culprit. (3)
The funny thing is, it struck me just now that it’s uniquely a deaf thing. That hearing people do not play this game because for them, it would make as much sense as, say, playing Marco Polo w/ eyes closed or hide-and-seek in the Death Valley Salt Flats. (4)
But since my wife, our children, and I are all deaf, we are constantly accusing one another of committing high crimes against olfactory systems and denying culpability w/ a straight face even while ripping sphincter sirens that would make police cars envious. (5)
This epiphany makes me think of when I was in middle school and went to a summer basketball camp with about 100 deaf kids and two hearing kids with deaf parents.
According to the hearing campers on the first night of camp, they just couldn’t believe what they were hearing. (6)
According to the hearing campers on the first night of camp, they just couldn’t believe what they were hearing. (6)
As we dribbled, passed, & rebounded, we would pass gas so liberally, shooting bottom burps off like how drunk college students do fireworks, producing whizzpoppers so frequently that if we had been paid a dollar for each, we would surely be demonized by Bernie Sanders today. (7)
And the hearing campers? Despite being accomplished basketball players, they were overwhelmed, looking left and right as the rest of us ran – and butt sneezed – circles around them on the hardwood. (8)
This brings to mind a favorite joke in middle school: Q: why do farts stink? A: So that deaf people can appreciate them too. (9)
Here’s another true story. I remember being mainstreamed for the first time in third grade after growing up at a deaf school. I was the only deaf kid in a class of about 25 students. (10)
My first month into the trimester, for mysterious reasons, I just couldn’t stop producing bottom howitzers, regardless of how I adjusted seating positions on that wooden desk chair. (11)
Finally, right after my biggest squeaker yet, my well-coiffed, old-maidish sign language interpreter mustered the temerity to tell me: “That’s enough. Hush.” (12)
It hit me like a hammer.
They. Hear Me.
My deaf parents and sisters and deaf school teachers had never warned me. (13)
They. Hear Me.
My deaf parents and sisters and deaf school teachers had never warned me. (13)
That farts could smell like a cow farm in the dog days of summer, I had known, but that we could be as loud as a drunkard with a shofar while doing it? (14)
I had thought “silent but deadly” was a synonym for farts but as I learned the hard way that day, it is simply a variation on a surprisingly intricate continuum. (15)
Anyway, the third-grade-me was mortified when I figured out my new classmates had not been staring at me because they thought sign language was interesting. (16)
As has been written, nothing is more conspicuous than a farting princess.
But, you know, the same may be true for hearing kids at deaf basketball camps, mainstreamed deaf kids in elementary school, & the last member in my family to have a thumb on their foreheads. (F)
But, you know, the same may be true for hearing kids at deaf basketball camps, mainstreamed deaf kids in elementary school, & the last member in my family to have a thumb on their foreheads. (F)
