Going Clown

Friday night is Martini Night, and yesterday, in celebration of completing our May orders (only three weeks behind schedule), Melinda and I walked down to The Royal Room, where a young man was improvising some jazz on the Steinway grand. We were delighted to run into our friend Charlie Parriot (his wife Connie is our co-worker who is undergoing chemo) —

When we left, Charlie turned to me and said, or, I heard, "I want you to work on being clowns." And I answered, "We're working on it." And then he grabbed my hand and kissed it.

 Now, Charlie may very well have been advising Melinda and me to look into career changes — he's never been known to make mundane conversation. But clowns?! And god only knows why I so quickly responded in the manner I did.

It wasn't until we were part way up the hill back to the factory that I realized what I thought he said, and what I responded. I laughed so hard that I had to steady myself by grabbing a telephone pole.

As I like to tell my kids, it's not hearing loss, but a more elevated form of auditory
perception known as Interpretive Hearing.