Denver – Good evening, everybody! I caught sight of the latest questions involving the famous actress, Marlee Matlin, and her voice being dubbed-over during a recent episode of Dancing with The Stars. I am outraged! I am appalled! I am grossly and greatly gentrified by that fact! Why wasn’t Marlee Matlin’s voice used!? I demand answers!

HaHa!

I’m just messin’ with all ya’all. Can ya dig it, ya know what I’m sayin’?

Anyway, we had lots of snow fall over the weekend. Storm after storm raged and blew through the city. At one point, the roads were layered with alternating sheets of ice and snow, which made driving hazardous.

And then I discovered the joys of ice-braking. You see, ice-braking involves driving super fast down hills and at the last possible second, immediately begin singing:

Are you sleeping,
Are you sleeping?
Brother John?
Brother John?
Morning bells are ringing ..

Ice-braking involves little common sense and a complete ignorance of physics. Like, ice-brakers typically believe, “where there’s a will, there’s a way” and try to literally will their vehicles to fly over houses like a rerun of an episode of the Dukes of Hazzard.

In fact, it was early Sunday morning that I encountered a real-life and feral ice-braker! I went for a walk towards a park near our neighborhood, and our street has a blind curve that snakes uphill towards the park.

I was walking down the street towards the park and the curve, all ya’ll.

So .. the roads were icy and covered with a thick layer of powdery snow. As I walked, I had to be careful not to slip and fall and make weird, effeminate noises.

Shrieking, “Omigawd! OMIGAWD! Did that just happen!? OMIGAWD!” like a teenage girl going bonkers after having met Britney Spears in person by accident is not my idea of a good time.

Of course, I was walking in the middle of the street, too. I mean, I am deaf – I am forced to make people veer off roads as I walk down the middle of the street because there’s a sign that says, “Deaf Crossing” near my house. This sign states to everyone else, “Paotie is Crossing! He is Deaf! This is a Deaf Crossing! We must give him the right-of-way at all times. Yes. Yes. We must allow him to walk very slowly – he is Deaf. And Crossing. Aunt Bertha’s funeral can wait – we must respect the Deaf People as they Cross the Street.”

Well, the long of it short is this: a teenage male ice-braker lost control of his car as he approached both the curve and myself at a high-rate of speed. “High-rate of speed” is an official police-like statement for, “super fast!”

When the car slid and bounced over the curb on the curve, the car and its contents were soon in a zero-gravity environment. I saw lots of paper floating around inside the car, as well as dark liquid, a cellphone, pink female thongs, and a once-wet edition of a Playboy magazine!

I am not kidding you!

I checked on the lad to make sure he was fine after the car finally came to a stop near a snow-covered embankment not far from the curbed curve. I gave him the “thumbs-up” signal and he looked at me like a fish in a frying pan. As I shrugged and walked away, I caught a glimpse of him telling his mother on his paper-thin cellphone, “But Mom – he was walking in the middle of the street! TOWARDS ME!”

I figured his parents would probably give him a good yelling and lecture about Crossings of the Deaf. I mean, kids are kids – they’ve got to be told how life works.

Deaf Crossing signs are a good early warning system for people to know that there are people who are Deaf and make Crossings across streets. Deaf Crossing Catholics often Cross themselves as they pray upon the Cross when they Cross streets for Deaf Crossings – kids have got to be taught these things!

The point of this article is that Ms. Matlin’s voice may have been dubbed over, but there is no point in crying foul when a Crossing of the Deaf has been made because in the end, there really were no Crossings that were made. “Whether I’m deaf or not isn’t important,” Ms. Matlin signed as she said. Or said as she signed.

That’s right. Who cares if her voice was dubbed over? If she ain’t worried about it, then nobody else needs to worry about it, either.

Anyway, I have to go now – I am going downtown to collect signatures for a petition to install more Deaf Crossing signs near topless bars as I continue my research efforts to eradicate breast cancer. All ya’ll have a good evening, ya’hear?

And! Plus! A great starter of conversations are ice-brakers!

Pun intended.

Be good .. or be good at it.

Paotie