First, let me establish that I am not an unusually paranoid or self-centered person: whenever I hear a ringing payphone I don’t automatically assume that the call is for me, and whenever I hear a siren I don’t always think that I’m the one getting pulled over. What I absolutely cannot do, however, is hear the demanding bellow of a child and not think that it comes from one of my own, because, in my case, what they say is all too true: “Ask not for whom the child bellows; it bellows for thee.”
What is it about my kids and hollering? Both of them seem to be under the mistaken impression that even the longest and most in-depth of conversations can be conducted from opposite ends of the house, or even–if they happen to be visiting a neighbor– from opposite ends of the neighborhood. And I don’t mean the kind of desperate bellowing conversation that everyone has, on occasion, engaged in (surely even the Queen of England herself has found out too late that the bathroom she chose is completely toilet paper free). Nor do I mean the inarticulate whoops of delight you might use to get someone’s attention when you are speechless with laughter (like, for example, when they are replaying the clip of the President falling off of his Segway). No, what I’m talking about are discussions the length and depth of Plato’s dialogues, conducted in a bellow from 40 feet away.
Sometimes the discussions are more of the nature of a trivia quiz–these are the ones I usually am pulled into unwittingly, since, as a true trivia nerd, I cannot resist that first, simple, question.
“Mom!” comes a voice from what sounds to be a few blocks away. “Who were the Axis powers?” I know I shouldn’t, but the trivia hound in me can’t but help shouting out the answer as quick as I can (although the only person I might be competing against is a guy walking his dog down the street).
“I know! I know! Germany, Italy and Japan!”
“What?”
“Ger-man-y, It-a-ly, and Ja-pan,” I enunciate.
“Hungary, Ritalin and Thailand? Ritalin isn’t even a country.”
“NO. GER–”
“Never mind–I’ll ask Dad.”
Other times I am the one who naively gets these long-distance communications going by assuming (mistakenly), that if they have important information to impart, they will want to do so to my face.
“Clementine! Do you need lunch money?”
“(mumble mumble) Skor-bive?”
“What?”
“(mumble mumble) Skor-BIVE?”
“COME HERE!”
(Reluctantly appearing) “We’re going on a field trip today–I said you’d drive.”
The worst part is that, as I mentioned before, I have become so numb to the bellowing lifestyle that I now interpret any shout in my direction as simply a long-distance solicitation. My only hope is that this doesn’t end in tragedy; I’d hate to wander into the middle of a gunfight only to assume that the shouts I’m hearing from all directions are simply multiple requests from my children to get them a waterfowl as a pet.