I blurry love you

Phew, I woke up this morning and thought it was Saturday, then Friday and then

*sniff

I realised that it was only Wednesday. This week has been a hectic one to say the least and I think I am bit tired. One of the first things to go when I am tired is my hearing… swiftly followed by my speech.

But lets start with the hearing. Last night I was on the phone to my Pa who was visiting my Gma – I can hear my rents surprisingly well on the phone normally, which I love.

My Gma is cool – she’s an octogenarian who moves with the times. She writes texts in txt spk and goes on computer courses so she can whiz around the wireless internet on her speedy laptop.

Her latest move-with-the-times thing is a brand-spanking-new kitchen – all beech and modern and last night my Pa informed me that she had chosen a black door. ‘Where?’ I said as my Gma has three doors in her kitchen and I was struggling to work out why she’d want any of them to be black. ‘The door is black,’ my Pa said. ‘I know,’ I replied, ‘but there are three, which one?’
‘Three?’ my Pa said.

There was a pause and then he clicked…

‘F-L-O-O-R!’ he said to me very slowly and then I clicked. A black floor made much more sense – how trendy my Gma is! She’s got a fancy oven and black granite work surfaces too, apparently!

Oooh that reminds me, this morning the subtitles supporting the BBC weather presenter informed deaf readers of the following, ‘If you are expecting sunny weather, URINE for a shock!’ and yes – if I was expecting sun and I got a golden shower instead, it would be shocking.

But enough deviating from the point of today’s post and onto the speech…

I was once on a date with a boy who was more like Austin Powers than I should have found attractive and he asked me if I was drunk as I appeared to be slurring my voice. Once I had got over the surprise of him asking me that, particularly as I was sat behind the wheel of my car at the time, I replied that no, I wasn’t drunk, I was deaf and tired. Which I guess makes a change from sick and tired.

It’s quite a nice statement to come out with actually – I am deaf and tired of this week/programme/date/boy*

*delete where applicable.

But it’s true nonetheless that when I am tired my speech goes a bit funny. This morning it took me three attempts to say a word coherently to Lovely Freelancer. She was very patient but I did feel a bit silly.

In order to speak the way I normally do, I have to concentrate quite hard on getting the letters out properly, sounding out the ones I don’t hear anymore and finishing words properly. When I am tired, this goes, I no longer concentrate and so quite often sentences come out in a slurring jumble.

But perhaps the weirdest thing is that when I am actually drunk the opposite happens – I suddenly have the intonation of a newsreader and instead of slurring, ‘I blurry love you,’ to everyone in sight, it’s far more likely that I will come out with, ‘I say, I love you ever such an awful lot.’

OK, OK the last bit is a slight exaggeration – but next time I’m out with you, buy me and rum and coke and then you can see for yourself.