can you hear me now?

i remember growing up on harper lane. like it was yesterday. we were all pretty tight knit. there were a ton of kids on the street. all ages. we had a vacant lot on one side of us and the worthy's lived on the other side. jack and verna worthy. they had two kids. greg and monica. my dad used to call monica a different name. he called her monicaca because my mom despised the word caca and my dad did it just to annoy her. my dad officiated many sports back in the day. although he really is deaf now i think a lot of it back then was selective hearing from making bad calls. he also had selective hearing when the phone rang at all hours of the night when someone felt the need to express their concerns over those bad calls. except of course when watching tv. i was again reminded of this yesterday. my mom always used to ask my dad if verna's tv was working. i almost asked him that question yesterday. and it would have been even more funny as verna still lives in midland. about 243 miles northeast of my current house. but i am sure she could have heard our tv. hell, osama bin laden could have heard it. in his cave. in pakistan. you see, i had just put the kids down for a nap. and i had a headache. and my dad comes upstairs and turns the tv on. now you would think that if you were deaf you wouldn't feel the need to turn the volume on let alone adjust the volume. because you can't hear. not my dad. he not only proceeds to turn the volume up so the good people of pakistan can hear it but he also starts to talk to me. above the volume of the tv. by this time sophie was up and crawling around. and my dad starts to hum the michigan state fight song. sophie's favorite. and some time between the human trumpeting of fight, fight, rah, team, fight and yelling victory for msuuuuuuuuuuuuuu somehow will was rudely awakened. somehow. and if i hadn't have already had a headache i would have gotten one anyway.