Get Your Hearing Checked or Get a Hearing Aid

My dad can’t hear a word for shit.

One day I asked him, “What anniversary is it for you?”

meaning him and mom,

he then asked me,

“What animal tree are you afraid of?” 

asking subliminally if that is what I said

without the strained old age “Whaaa” exiting his lips.

(Old people are too lazy to add the t).

Here are some pictures of what he might have meant by “animal tree”

My sister and I joke that the “animal tree we are afraid of” was this tree down the block from our apartment. A tree that was littered with stuffed animals, such as these

Since that “animal tree” day the hearing problem has only gotten worse.  But he claims he has 20/20 hearing. Ha!

Here is the most recent misinterpretation.

I ask my dad the other day: “Dad, where is that gondola ride in Las Vegas; in what hotel?”

He says back to me: “The goggles you rented?”

My mother chimes in: He went to a dime store to get his hearing checked.

Dad says: No, I went to Walmart!

Mom rebuts: That’s what a dime store was except a smaller version.

If I could remember more lapses in his hearing I would relay them now.  So stay-tuned—there might just be some updates soon.

But for now, here is something similar to chew over—this is the way my Nona (grandma) speaks.
This segment is a little something I'd like to call, Nona's Dictionary

Nona speaks with what she calls a Brooklyn accent,

but none of us are certain about that being an actual fact.

Here is the list thus far:

1. Ayhhlmonds for Almonds

2. Gaz to replace Gas

3. Steer-io instead of Stereo 

4. She alters her also by adding an alt before the so

5. And her newest addition—she says Broccoli as Brokely   

6. My favorite, though, is how she says her A's.  She drags them out so that she says, "AHHnderson Cooper."  Or, "I have to go to the Baaaahhthroom."

Well, that is all I heard for now.  Keep listening.

One last thing.  Some poems I wrote—a spin off of the Nickelodeon commercial above.

While Teaching Mr. Ear Hears

The clicking,

back and forth of a ball point pen –

chalk scratches, snowing grains on the ledge –

chewed pencil asses erase mistakes made

on a piece of prop paper –

shuffling papers

splitting and cutting and dealing the deck

to the classroom of children –

with squishes as their lashes click –

Mr. Ear Hears

sneakers skidding across linoleum,

plastic sounds of wagon wheels churning,

burning rubber –

gurney grinding screeches

spinning siren sounds,

spurring silver squeaks –

whole notes mewing off an acoustic tile ceiling

as Carousel music winds to a slow creak