Hidden Talents

In an  attempt to up the quality of reporting on this blog to give it the sort of edgy, raw material it needs to be top notch (and compete with two sister in laws who are having babies tomorrow (congratulations by the way)), I decided to do a little undercover bit on the life of a mute.  Yesterday night, just like in the Little Mermaid, I gave up my voice.  Today has been quite an experience and I can already tell you--I want my voice back.  It has been a difficult day of being ignored and not being able to talk on the phone.  In addition it makes it hard to communicate even simple everday things such as "good morning,"  "What are you doing this weekend?" "Watch out for that bus!", or "That was good food."  Instead I've mostly just had to keep to myself.

According to the internet, losing your voice is caused either by vocal chord inflamation from a cold and the like, or one of these more serious issues:

1. your vocal cords are bowed
2. one vocal cord is thicker than the other
3. one vocal cord is partially paralized

4 you have spasmodic dysphonia (basically, laryngeal stuttering)  

I don't know if I have inflamed or paralyzed vocal chords, all I know is that they don't work.  I still had the ability to whisper slightly.  If Nicole would get really quiet, she could hear me; however, I lacked projection and any sort of intonation.  In fact, particularly frustrating yesterday was when our neighber who is somewhere between 93 and 142 and is hard of hearing came over to talk to me while I was putting things in the car.  Every time I spoke, she would lean in further.  Finally it became aparant she had no idea what I was saying.  

Luckily though, later on, I was also able to find another way to communicate vocally.  As young child, to the admiration of my other young friends and to the shame of my mother, I developed quite an ability to burp on demand.  Not just little baby burps, but nice loud bass-y belches.  Do to the urging of my mother, I have kept this talent hidden from the majority of the world; very few beyond my own family have actually heard me burp.  But today I decided to let loose as I found that although I couldn't use my vocal chords, I could still talk with my burps.  Mostly Nicole has just found it humorous.  So if you have some thing important you need me to tell you like, "hey, your car is on fire," give me a call before my voice comes back.