Denver – Good evening, everybody! I hope all ya’ll have been doing well! April is here and that means the IRS wants to help you this year! All you have to do is buy your way into more debt with government-sponsored “stimulus packages!” And! Plus! I saw the recent CBS television show, Cold Case, the other night, and I was facetiously flummoxed and discombobulated! I was gerrymandered!

HaHa!

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

So .. yah. I watched Cold Case the other night and it was nice to watch. I mean, the plot was so-so. Acting was okay. A little eye-candy here and there. Nothing to write home about, really. A Deaf guy is murdered because his latently homosexual Deaf friend didn’t approve of his now-dead friend’s decision to have a cochlear implant.

Aigh’t?

Yesterday at Starbucks, a female, Hispanic friend and I were discussing the television show and its implications. I had recently met her a few weeks ago during one of her group prayer thingamajigs and had already given her a brief once-over in regard to the Deaf Community in general.

She was pretty, short and very thin, and her shortly cropped straight-hair gave her a sort of fragile and frumpy image. Through narrowed eyes that gave a look of intense concentration across her face, she asked, “Do Deaf people really feel that way about cochlear implants?”

“Yup.”

“Gosh! That is terrible!”

“Yup.”

“Why do Deaf people feel that way?”

Deaf people who were once oral and now selectively mute, I had told her, belonged to a self-anointed group called, “Great Ordinates of the National Anuses of the Deaf” – GONAD for short. These people, GONADs, believed they were God’s appointed representatives for all Deaf people all around the world – including those in China!

I explained more: all other Deaf people (such as those genetically-engineered to be Deaf), do not care one way or another about cochlear implants and that again, the only Deaf people whining about it were ex-oral-deaf-now-Deaf people. Through circularly wide and brown-eyes staring at me with heated and fierce intensity, she declared, “That is really weird.”

“Yup.”

“But why kill someone because they can hear? That’s not right.”

I explained to her that many Deaf people liked to believe that there are only two kinds of people on the planet: Deaf people and people with anuses. “You are either Deaf or you are an audist, hearing asshole,” I explained, “and if you are neither, then you are British and named Paddy Ladd.”

I am not kidding you!

I also explained that Mr. Ladd accidentally started a cult called, “Deafhood,” and that many Deafhood priests demanded Deaf people to attend seminars to learn things like, What’s Wrong With My Deaf Anus And Why I Need To Be Told What’s Wrong With My Deaf Anus.

“A religion? For Deaf people?”

“Yup.”

“Weird. That really is.”

I shrugged at her. And then we sat in awkward silence for a few moments. I took another sip of my iced chai and reflected back on what we’d talked about – I didn’t want to leave any doubt about the truth behind Cold Case‘s episode left unturned. “It must be true,” I said to her as I began picking up my papers and books, “if it is shown on television, like on CBS.”

She laughed and took another drink of her morning’s poison. I smiled at her, wondering what she’d tell other people about our conversation involving the television show, cochlear implants, Deaf people, and even myself.

I gathered my things and put them into my backpack before I slung it over a shoulder. I shook her hand and realized she was already waiting to ask me something again. “Has it ever happened yet? Like, on Cold Case?”

I thought about her question as I let go of her hand before nodding. “Sure,” I said, “just like in most other cultures, there’s always a cultural asshole lurking in some darkened corner – ready to rip your eye-lids off for breaking an ambiguously unwritten or unsigned rule!”

“No, I mean .. has anyone died yet? Like, on Cold Case?”

“Oh! I thought you were talking about ass- .. nevermind. Umm .. no, nobody’s been killed over a cochlear implant yet.”

“Yet?”

“Yup.”

I rushed out the door because I was already running late to my next appointment, so I never got the chance to finish talking to her. Anyway, I have to go now – it’s:

APRIL FOOL’S DAY

HaHa!

I’m just messin’ with all ya’all.

Happy April Fool’s Day, everybody!

Be good .. or be good at it.

Paotie