The newest addition to my personal list of Irritating Habits (which I unwillingly collect, don’t be mistaken) is replying “What?” whenever something is said to me. When and how exactly this habit has surfaced, I know not, but there it is, a big WHAT; an irritating reply to anyone who wants an answer.
I don’t talk to a lot of people these days, reasons being that it is summer and the few people I know are off on their respective holidays; and because Julien doesn’t want to get a dog. And because Julien doesn’t want to get a dog, I am forced to sit in front of the computer all day, soaking up its rays and getting a virtual tan in the process, instead of teaching my dog how to save lives a la Lassie or establishing our very own special girl-dog language — which we might’ve suceeded in through day-long activities of tapping our innate extrasensory potential.
So it’s Julien who gets all my What’s thrown his way. He is in danger of becoming a parrot, and he knows it, although he doesn’t (yet) show signs of the building trepidation in his chest. “Have we got a bottle of wine?” “What?” “You want to have dinner yet? “Huh?” “I only have 15 more pages of this book to go…” “Eugh???” It’s not only What’s that I shower him with. Variations of the word slip out of my mouth : Huh?’s, Eugh?’s, Eh?’s, and sometimes, the very Filipino Ha?’s.
I’m sitting here typing while he’s 6… no, 5 pages away from finishing a Murakami novel, and I’m biting my tongue in case he tells or asks me something, in fear that I’ll volley a What? or a Variation of What? towards his side of the conversation court.
Honestly, I’ve no idea of what has happened to me, or when this What Disease ever started (although I have a sneaking suspicion it’s been going on for 3 months – or at least, I’ve been conscious of it since). It only happens with Julien. And I don’t get it. I clean my ears regularly. I hear the phone ring when I’m in the other room. My last EENT check-up (not so long ago, incidentally), tells me that everything’s fine. My ears suffer every time our downstairs neighbor plays his Elton John Live! cd at full volume. True, I can’t hear a pin drop in Greenland, but, well, you know what I mean. So, yes… I don’t get it. At all.
Checking the notes I made upon further in-depth introspection concerning my What Disease (which is an indirect confession that I don’t do anything significant during the weekdays) has led me to believe that I understand what is being said to me. It’s just that I want it repeated, confirmed. As if I didn’t trust myself and my hearning skills anymore.
So when a person begins to doubt his/her abilities concerning the 5 senses – touch, sight, smell, taste and as in my case, sound – what does it all mean? In my case, does it mean that I’ve lost the ability to hear, not in the physical sense of course, but in that other sense, that special sense where you can hear your loved one’s heart singing love songs through layers of bulky winter clothing, or that character in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Telltale Heart who goes bonkers over some beating heart hidden in the floorboards, or some crap similar to that? (In short, the 6th sense)
It leaves me undoubtedly sad, my current “What?” situation. Sad and baffled. I feel nothing but pity for Julien, who churns out 60 sentences when all he wanted was to utter 30. It feels as if my social skills are going down the drain, along with the bits of cabbage and leftover potato peels in the kitchen sink. And he should know that I still hear him, that I listen, that I understand.
Which leads me to a story about my youngest brother’s Why? Stage. His then- 7 year-old Why Period caused grief to everyone at home. Our patience was growing thin, having to explain to him the Mario-Luigi-Princess’ relationship, why people kill, why snakes crawled, why I loved Radiohead’s Thom Yorke (well, there are lots of reasons for that hehe).
One evening our family sulkily boarded the car to visit my doctor sister, Dr. Doom. During the ride my two brothers and I wanted to kill Nikko, who was babbling away, pointing at the neon lights, asking “Why? Why? Why? WHY???” to everything he saw. My brother PartyJesus bonked him on the head.
“Aaaah,” cried Nikko. “Mommy, why did he hit me?”
“Because you’re driving me nuts,” muttered PartyJesus.
My mum turned around, irritated, and gave us a sermon, saying that we should encourage his curiousity rather than bonk him on the head, and that all children went through this stage, and that if she had bonked our heads each time we asked her “Why?” we would’ve all been under social service custody and she in jail, blah blah blah.
Just at that moment our car passed the Sperm Bank, and PartyJesus nudged Nikko.
“Hey, why don’t you ask Mommy what that building is.”
Nikko read the panel. “Spe-erm Bank. Sperm Bank. Mommy, what’s a sperm? Why is there a bank for sperm? Is it some kind of money? Mommy what’s a sperm?”
“Sperm is… it’s…” my mum started, paused, then turned around and said, “Okay, all of you, shut up.”
The remainder of the car ride was silent, except for the occasional chuckle from my father.
