Monday, May 4, 2015

Gratitude Monday-- Bastard? What Bastard?

I have what I have come to call an interesting ear.
The auditory canal in my right ear is the wrong shape. Instead of a gentle curve it has some sharp angles. For as annoying as that can be I have to say I am grateful for it.
Here's why:
Because of this words get in, mix around, and come through far different from the innocent intentions of the speaker.
For example, back in the eighties I was walking though the downtown Edmonton Hudson's Bay Store on my way back to work.  The store had the radio on to a station that offered a contest with a chance to win one of ten Air Canada trips to the Neutral Zone.

A few years later there was a devastating hurricane on a Caribbean Island. Donations were coming in from all over and I heard it announced on the radio that Edmonton had been so generous it was sending its own planeload.
I shook my head. I could not for the life understand what possible good a planeload of Dalmatians was going to be.

One of my early hearing hits happened in 1969 in Grimshaw, in Northern Alberta. It was July,  family reunion time. Cousin Wayne, whose family hosted that year, our cousin Becky, and  I went to the tunnels for a Sunday morning smoke. The tunnels ran at an angle under a street near the downtown, were at least five feet high,  and came complete with a bit of mud and wet and rocks. One side opened near a church.
We were busy lighting up when Wayne said, "There's the Pastor."
It fell on my right ear and I asked, "Bastard? What bastard?"

Over the years I've adjusted and even though I hear odd things still, they rarely match the fun I had when the ear canal was young. Until Saturday when my husband saw goji berries in Superstore and asked if I wanted any grouchy faeries.

Well, if can pack them in a plane full of Dalmatians headed to the Neutral Zone, why not? But we'll need to be careful. I've heard they can be real bastards.







9 comments:

CARLA said...

oh
please write that picture book :)
ALL ABOUT THE GROUCHY FAERIES.

Tabor said...

What a sense of humor. You are just the kind of person one needs about when the conversation gets dull.

messymimi said...

What a complex and, if taken in the right spirit, hysterically funny difficulty to have!

solarity said...

For me, it's my eyes that are so creative. The things I see on billboards are so much more entertaining than what's really there. Unfortunately, my memory loses track of them.

Mary Anne in Kentucky

Leah J. Utas said...

Carla, I'd love to. I have Wee Folk in one of my manuscripts now on simmer, but none of them are particularly grouchy.

Tabor, awww. I try not to be dull.

Messymimi, it sure has had its moments.

Mary Anne, what the mind supplies can be most entertaining.

Crabby McSlacker said...

Love those mishearings! Although, alas, I'm too geographically illiterate to know where the real Neutral Zone is... do they have grouch faeries there?

Leah J. Utas said...

They do now, Crabby.

You'll recall the Neutral Zone is the buffer space between the Federation and the Romulans.

solarity said...

I just had one of those moments. The headline didn't say "Time Travel Tips" it actually said "Trail Time Tips" (whatever those are.)

Mary Anne in Kentucky

Leah J. Utas said...

Mary Anne, I like your version better. Way more useful.