I knew this would happen

[blamebrampton]

Twenty years ago come May, I was hit in the head with a taxi and major thoroughfare in quick succession. I broke several bones in my face, scraped off a lot of skin, bruised myself to buggery, broke my hand and a few ribs and cracked some other bits besides.

In a way it was good that I had the broken hand because I had very obviously been in an accident. There were some nice things, like the woman who followed me down a long street until we neared the police station and then gently sought my attention to tell me that I deserved better and that she would come with me to the police if I wanted to make a complaint. I made sure that I told her I thought she was wonderful and brave before I told her I'd been hit by a taxi. I still wish I'd felt up to hugging her.

There was a little girl in the pet shop who lifted up bunnies and kittens for me to pat because they made her feel better and she guessed I needed something cheering. When her mother told her to stop bothering the lady, I confess I may have laid on the 'But it's really helping me, what a lovely child!' a little more thickly than a good person would have.

And there were annoying things, like the shopkeepers who knew me, had known me for ages, recognised that it was me, and yet still treated me as though I was a moron because I couldn't talk fluently and looked bad.

Last Friday, I paid a nice surgeon to hammer out two wisdom teeth and chisel some bone from the roof of my mouth. Since then, I have looked like a lopsided squirrel and had a splendid bruise down one cheek. And I can't talk without gagging on the stitches.

Primed by my earlier experience, I prepared a notebook. It contains multiple useful pages:
* I had an operation on my mouth and cannot talk for a bit.
* It looks worse than it feels, thanks for asking.
* Yes
* No
* Oh For Fuck's Sake!
* Can I put $10 on my Opal Card?
* Ask X, Y, Z (people at work with checkboxes to point to)
* It's very good to see you.
* Can I have a chocolate milk, please?

Armed with those nine pages, I have navigated a surprising percentage of my life, partcularly since going back to work yesterday. This has been helped by hardware changes in my absence, which have allowed me to do a surprising amount of my job with only NO and OH, FFS!

But of course, I occasionally have to talk. And because my left cheek is still swollen and stiff with bruising, and because my tongue cannot hit the roof of my mouth and I don't want to move my lips very much, I sound like a lisping, nasal squirrel impersonator.

Now at work, this is merely a source of comedy. And rightly so. Because it is funny. I'm also still a bit stoned from the general and all the opiates: drugs and I have never mixed well. They know this and were prepared. People laughing is perfectly rational, if cruel ;-)

But four times today other people listened to my lispy squirrel voice and looked at my swollen face and decided 'Oh, you must be stupid!'

Which just shits me. Not because someone thinks *I* am stupid (I'm five feet one and girly looking, people have made that mistake on spurious gender assumptions my whole life) but because it reminds me how needlessly fucking frustrating it must be to permanently have any one of the hundreds of physical conditions that mean you can't talk fluently.

So if this ever happens again (and given my track record, that's not unlikely), I have a new plan. I am going to download a voice synthesiser a la Stephen Hawking (maybe even the same voice) and I am going to program my series of responses, PLUS brief lectures on the mechanics of particle physics*, which I will play while looking at them with touching, swollen sincerity.

That'll learn 'em.



* Cribbed entirely from the work of Professor Hawking (I only 'get' physics up to Marie Curie), who I suspect will grant permission because there are jokes in A Brief History of Time, which means he can find comedy anywhere. Also, on cruising his essays last night when I dreamt up this plan, I found this regular disclaimer:

Note that there may be incorrect spellings, punctuation and/or grammar in this document. This is to allow correct pronunciation and timing by a speech synthesiser.

which is my new favourite example of why appropriately idiosyncratic grammar exists.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

My own experience of being bashed about was white van man knocking me off my motorcycle on my way to work.

And I certainly get you on spurious gender assumptions.

HUGS

[i-autumnheart.livejournal.com]

I like your list of stock phrases. I've had solo days in the office where I could manage with just two ("thankyou" to the bus driver and "skim flat white please" at the coffee shop), but don't think I could handle actual interaction with people on so few.

With regard to physics insertions, you can explain quite a lot with a limited vocabulary: c.f. Up Goer Five http://xkcd.com/1133/...

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

I had my concussion experience in the back - and then front in rapid succession - of a taxi.

I had it the other way round, with only a slight bump on the head but my brains were fried, I remember looking at the partner asking me a tax question thinking, I dunno. I'm not sure what my name is right now.

[nenne.livejournal.com]

Poor you! *pets carefully* Feel better soon.

More or less the exact same experience you get when you move to a foreign country and you can't speak the language properly. Searching for the right words is taken as a sign of a really slow functioning brain. (Oh, the irony of being judged by people who speak only one language for the lack of fluency in your third.)

[piratesmile331.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure "Oh, for fuck's sake" would be my go-to card.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

That was a good plan. I've been meaning to photocopy some relevant psych book passages for people who I know will put me down again with "common knowledge" crap, but "tl;dr" and if I copy out just relevant sentences, their proofiness seems less. The Hawking idea of yours would wonderful, but making people stay and listen long enough ... not so much.

He also is a friend of at least one UK stand-up comedian, so of course you're right. And way too accident prone, though maybe you'll end up indestructible at some point. *hands you cocoa*

[sassy-cissa.livejournal.com]

People are often morons....

That said, I hope you feel better soon. And it's too bad you can't add "oh do piss off" to your list of phrases. ♥

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

I hope that you recover quickly. The "important phrases" notebook is an excellent idea!

[germankitty]

Some people make assumptions/snap judgements on the flimsiest of evidence, ie. they see/notice one slight impairment, however temporary, and instead of showing compassion, they get really offensive.

Different scenario, but similar effect: When I was starting my 8th month of pregnancy, my offspring decided Mommy's sciatic nerve would be a nice resting place over the holidays. Not only did I have to live with constant pain for two weeks (late pregnancy and analgesics do NOT mix), I was also limping rather badly. Hubby and I were out shopping one day for the nursery during those two weeks, and two women passed us on the street. The younger took one look at my bump/limp, and told her older companion loudly enough for us to hear every word, "just look at THAT -- handicapped and PREGNANT!" in a way that sounded as if I was committing the most heinous crime against nature/humanity by being pregnant and having a limp.

Even 28 years later, I'm STILL hurt and offended.

So yeah, I feel your anger and pain. *hugs*

[enchanted-jae.livejournal.com]

People are daft and thoughtless.

:/

[adevyish.livejournal.com]

:( some people are awful.

I discovered several years ago one could use the command line on a Mac to (a) synthesize speech (b) on other computers in the same network. I have yet to find a good use for it.

[azurelunatic]

Ugh! Why must people be terrible?

[fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com]

who I suspect will grant permission because there are jokes in A Brief History of Time, which means he can find comedy anywhere.

If you haven't heard it yet, the Nerdist podcast just had a great episode (http://www.nerdist.com/pepisode/nerdist-podcast-brian-cox-and-eric-idle/) where they were talking to Brian Cox & Eric Idle at the same time. One of the things they discussed was the time they got Stephen Hawking to record a joke for the Monty Python reunion tour. It's about an hour in, if you just want to listen to that bit.