Sam's Club V.I.D. (Very Important Deafie). By Joy.

The Boyds love bulk. And by bulk, I mean Sam’s Club. If you grew up in a large family, you are no doubt familiar with the concept of purchasing large quantities of household items that are consumed as soon as they are bought. Examples of these items in the Boyd household were as follows: (1) anything sugary; (2) anything caffeinated; (3) anything processed.

Every Sunday without exception the Boyds made a beeline from our church to the local Sam’s Club. In an effort to beat the other churchgoers to the checkout line, Generalissimo Syl, with military precision, assigned each child a “jumbo” or “family-sized” item for retrieval. Like a small team of elite green berets, we synchronized our watches and fanned out across the expanse of the stadium-sized warehouse in search of our marks.

Time was of the essence on these missions as Syl not only expected us to succeed but to do so in a timely fashion so she could dispatch us on another tour of duty. Occasionally one of use would dilly-dally a little longer than Syl liked and she’d begin to fear that we’d been abducted or, worse, that we’d been distracted by the scores of free samples and had lost sight of our all important missions. In an effort to startle any would-be abductors and/or jerk us away from the mini beef ravioli table, Syl would shriek the name of the suspected lollygagger(s) at the top of her lungs. Let me apologize in advance to our handful of deaf readers (mainly Phil and Syl), for the picture I’m about to paint. Imagine hearing “WAAANNGGGHH!!!,” a noise I’d liken to a pack of alleycats midbrawl…next to an amplifier…hooked up to a stadium’s PA system. Or a hawk circling overhead, combined with the sound of squealing, screeching tires, a pack of baboons mating, and nails on chalkboard. Suffice it to say, Syl lacked neither volume nor range. See, some deaf people (“deafies,” as Syl refers to them) are blissfully (and understandably) unaware of the appropriate level of volume required to accomplish a given task or to achieve a particular result. Deafies are similarly unlearned in the realm of intonation. To Phil and Syl, there exists but one volume—loud, and one tone—hyper urgent, of the sort a hearing person might take with a 911 operator after witnessing a loved one being run over by a bus or eaten by a pack of wolves (hey, it happens!).

If we’d had our druthers, Syl would keep her yap completely shut during public excursions—a fact of which Syl was well aware and one which she regularly exploited to shame us into immediately showing ourselves in Sam’s or wherever else we may be. As soon as we heard Syl’s trademark shriek, we all aborted our respective missions and Operation Shut Up Syl went into effect. It mattered not whose name Syl was screaming; we all had a vested interest in minimizing the public humiliation that was sure to accompany being seen with Shrieking Syl. The longer the shriek, the farther the intolerable wail traveled up into the warehouse rafters, echoing off the concrete floors, reverberating through the walls and shaking the wooden pallets (and our hearts) to their very core. Back then, I was sure that if the walls had had ears, they’ve collapsed under the force and weight of Syl’s howling. When the fastest and closest among us reached Syl, she’d immediately, as if on cue, clam up and calmly sign, “Where have you been? That twelve pack of frozen chicken breasts ain’t gonna throw itself into the cart. Move!!”

I’m ashamed to admit it, but to this day, I still shush Syl in public. But this is mostly because she still insists on yelling my name in public venues despite the fact that I am standing, at most, three feet away from her. Does that make me a bad daughter? Perhaps. But unless you’re a CODA* (*Child of Deaf Adult—I did not make this term of art up; however, you should commit this term to memory as it surely will be referenced in future blogs), you can’t judge. The Native Americans had it right: you shouldn’t judge another until you’ve walked a mile in her moccasins. So feel free to try them on, would-be judges, because they’re a size ten I’ve got a coonskin hat and a rifle to go with them!

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