Earn More Sessions by Sleeving

Tonight I came home from hanging out with my friends and I watched the Steve Martin movie, Roxanne for the four hundred seventy-sixth time. It's based on the Rostand play, Cyrano de Bergerac.

When I was six, my aunt made me a tape with three movies on it--Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Splash, and Roxanne. I watched the tape in it's entirety every day for a period of time that could easily be considered clinically insane. I learned something different from each movie. From Willy Wonka, I learned that sometimes good things do happen to good people, even if those good people are poor. From Splash I learned that sometimes being in love means abandoning everything you know and spending the rest of your life under water. And from Roxanne I learned everything else I needed to know about getting by in life.

There's a scene where Steve Martin's character, C.D. Bales, is sitting on a roof with an overweight boy who is upset because he's getting teased at school. Bales asks the boy if he's talked to his mother about his problems and the boy replies, "Once I tried, but she said I had to clean up my plate first."

Bales, thinking the boy has just made a joke says, "Now see, that's good. You're way better than those guys who make fun of you. You're smart and you're funny. You can make things up."

All through the movie, Bales lives by his own, smart+funny+the ability to make things up=better, equation. The scene most remembered by anyone who's ever seen the movie is the scene in which Bales has to come up with twenty insults about his nose better than "big nose." One of my favorites, "Fashionable: You know, you could deemphasize your nose if your wore something a little larger--like Wyoming." Or how about, "You must love the little birdies to give them this to perch on."

I applied the things I learned from Roxanne to my own life. I remember being in the sixth grade and making my Art teacher, Mrs. Cadic, laugh. Referring to my hairy self I said, "Gee, now I see why some people think we descended from apes."

These are the things I generally think of when I watch Roxanne--how to be the kind of self-deprecating person that is liked by all and maybe stumbling upon some hot, brainy chick like the movie's title character who will be so swept up in my charm that she won't notice my faults.

When I watched Roxanne tonight though, another scene caught my attention and gave me pause. Towards the end of the film, Bale's is yelling at Roxanne through a closed door. He says, "Ten more seconds and I'm leaving." Roxanne opens the door and asks him to repeat himself. When he does, she turns to go back inside and he asks her what she thought he'd said.

Roxanne replies, "I thought you said 'earn more sessions by sleeving.'" As far as my current station in life is concerned, this might be the most important line in the movie.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to disclose that I have a slight, yet completely annoying, hearing problem. The ability to hear sounds is not my problem. I can hear a pin drop from three rooms away. My problem is in differentiating sounds.

I remember the old days at the cookie store, taking orders over the phone. The customer might tell me that the person receiving the cookies name was Nora.

ME: "Is that Nora or Maura?"

CUSTOMER: "Nora."

ME: "With and M or an N?"

CUSTOMER: "N."

ME: "As in Mary or Nancy?"

CUSTOMER: "What is your fucking problem? It's Nora, NOra, NORA!"

I found that mashing the phone into my ear to the point of giving myself and Indian . . . I'm sorry, a Native American burn served only a psychological benefit. My point is, "bat" and "pat" have always sounded the same to me, and according to an audiologist, they always will.

Now, I'm a smart girl. Context clues are helpful, and I'm a fan of looking at people when they talk to me, so I can see on someones lips what is being said whether my ears can figure it out or not. The problem is the telephone.

Why then, you might ask, did I just accept a job offer for a position that will have me talking on the phone forty hours a week? I suppose this weekend I should spend some time thinking up deaf jokes.

PERSON IN DEBT: "I'll pay it Sunday."

ME: "Sunday or someday?"

PERSON IN DEBT: "Sunday"

ME: "As in the Lord's Day or just when you get around to it?"

PERSON IN DEBT: "I'll pay it right now if it'll end this conversation faster."

Huh, now I think I know what people in wheelchairs mean when they say they're handicapable. I'm going to be the best collections agent in the city of Columbus. See, you really can learn everything you need to know about life from Roxanne if you're willing to connect the dots yourself.