Andrea arrived home from dropping McKenna off at school. It had been a rough morning because she didn't want her to go. In the end she left her playing with another little girl the teacher paired her up with. The other little girl was hearing and was trying to learn sign by her observations. It was a big step for her, all her fears come to the surface because what if McKenna needed to go to the toilet and couldn't get her point across or had no one to sit with at lunch time.
Andrea knew she had been overthinking it because McKenna knew how to ask for the toilet. Andrea made her practice the sign over and over. She also knew how to call her mother and to push the button's on the phone over and over ever three seconds so her mother would know it was her calling. She also told McKenna just to talk into the phone after counting to twenty if she needed to call and she would come to the school. It was nerve racking because they were going into a situation where neither of them knew what to expect.
She thought she might be sick with worry not having her daughter close by to protect her. The school assured her they would ring if there was even the slightest of problems. It was worse than the first day she dropped her off at school. At least on her first day of school McKenna could communicate and could talk and listen to her friends. Now she had to try make new friends.
Andrea didn't cry until she made it out to the car park. Then she sat in her car and cried and cried. She then went to the store and brought some ingredients to make some cupcakes while she was at school. She promised the park and she would make a picnic for them for afternoon tea. Hopefully they both would have a good day.
Andrea put her butter and sugar into her cake mixer and turned on her computer and went to farmtown to see if she had any messages and she did have one extremely long joke from Digby. She snorted when she read it. It was like he read her mind after she told him her little girl was starting a new school today. She hadn't quite told him all the problems with her yet, she would when she had time to get her own head around things. She couldn't really work out her feeling for the stranger at the other end of the computer, she wasn't even sure where he lived. But she was starting to get feelings and she wanted to talk to him online every day. When she had her phone sorted out she had told him she would give him her number and he could call her. He hadn't agreed to that which made her think maybe he was just happy to have someone to shoot the breeze with online sometimes.
Hey babe, I'm working late tomorrow, I'm not going to be online, I was reading this thought you might like the laugh. Digby.
"A little old lady went into the headquarters of the Bank of America one day, carrying a large bag of money. She insisted that she must speak with the president of the bank to open a savings account because, "It's a lot of money!"
The receptionist objected, stating, "You can't just walk in here and expect to see the president of the Bank of America. He's a very busy man."
"But I am here to make a very large cash deposit, added the old woman.
The receptionist momentarily looked at the sack of money, then walked back to one of the rear offices. She came back and said, "You're in luck this morning, he will see you," and ushered her in to see the president of the Bank of America.
When she walked in to a large office with a nicely tailored man behind a great oaken desk. The bank president stood up and asked, "How can I help you?"
She replied, "I would like to open a savings account, and placed the bag of money on his desk.
"How much would you like to deposit?" he asked curiously.
"$180,000, if you please," and dumped the cash out of her bag onto his desk.
The President was surprised to see all this cash, so he asked her, "Ma'am, I'm surprised you're carrying so much cash around, especially a woman at your stage in life. Where did you come by this kind of money?"
The old lady coyly replied, "I make bets." Surprised, the president then asked, "Bets?
What kind of bets?" The old woman said,
"Well, for example. I'll bet you $25,000 that your balls are square."
"What?!" cried the man, "you want to bet me $25,000 that my balls, my testicles, are square?" He could hardly hold back from laughing.
"Yes, you heard me. In fact, by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, I'll bet you $25,000 that your balls will be square."
The man smiled broadly, thinking he had a live one. "You've got yourself a bet!" and shook her hand.
The little old lady then said, "Okay, but since there is a lot of money involved, may I bring my lawyer with me tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. as a witness?"
"Sure!" replied the confident president.
That night, the president got very nervous about the bet and spent a long time in front of a mirror checking his balls, turning from side to side, again and again. He thoroughly checked them out until he was sure that there was absolutely no way his balls were square and that he would win the bet.
The next morning, at precisely 10:00 a.m., the little old lady appeared with her lawyer at the president's office. She introduced the lawyer to the president and repeated the bet:
"$25,000 says the president's balls are square!"
The president agreed with the bet again and the old lady asked him to drop his pants so they could all see. The president complied.
The little old lady peered closely at his balls and then asked if she could feel them.
"Well, Okay," said the president, obviously embarrassed. Thinking to himself, "$25,000 is a lot of money, I guess it's okay." He then said.
Yes, $25,000 is a lot of money, so I guess you should be absolutely sure."
As the old woman started to feel the banker's testicles, he noticed that the lawyer was quietly banging his head against the wall.
The president asked the old lady, "What the hell's the matter with your lawyer?"
The old lady replied, "Nothing, except I bet him $100,000 that at 10:00 a.m. today, I'd have the balls of the president of the Bank of America in my hands."
Andrea leaned back on her chair with a huge grin on her face, he was a character this Digby, she had another suck day and he left her a note on her farm town. She took a sip of her coffee and typed in a reply about the joke he had sent her. It was funny as hell. She wondered where he found it. She quickly filled him in that yes her daughter did start school ok today. If he wanted too they could exchange numbers and she could fill him in about everything. Maybe eventually move on with their friendship. She put it in quotations. She stared at the screen, she deleted and back spaced and started again.
Maybe we should exchange phone numbers just in case I have to switch off this farm town or facebook? She typed in her cell phone number. You can text me yours if you want too, no pressure.
She hit send and then went about making up a picnic for her and her daughter for after school at the park.
He wasn't obsessed, he wasn't. Merle had been working on car's at his and his brothers garage all day wondering how he could casually log into facebook and check his farm town. Check to see if she had gotten his message. He was still stressing out about her telling him he should call her. He was going to try sneak off and play the game. Not for crops but to see if he made her smile. He now loved the internet because he could play games and talk to people without them looking at him funny, he could try be himself again. He played too many games, he didn't know if he was obsessed or addicted but he was addicted to Handy Andy the women he'd been talking to for over six months on the internet.
He opened up his farm town and there was a message in the envelope it was from her. He was half way through reading it when a hand banged the desk, he looked up guilty at his brother. Daryl was looking at him with an amused look on his face.
"I'm just checking emails." Merle told him.
"Bullshit, I can hear the music for farmtown all the way into the pit," Daryl's hands flew over the words he was saying, Merle looked guilty. He forgot to hit the mute button, that caught him out more times than he could count.
"I was really checking mail on there... this girl... w...o...m...a...n..." Merle struggled with the words, slurring them and trying to sign them. Signing the letters for woman because he didn't know the sign. He had a sign he could think of but cupping his chest like breasts wasn't a habit he wanted to get into.
Daryl pulled out his phone and tapped an app, he found the sign and they both looked at it. It wasn't a sign they had needed to use until now, Merle hadn't been interested in dating at all since he lost his hearing because he was struggling to keep up with things in general. Work, home, he'd had to move in with his brother when he first had his accident with his own little girl, but now he could sign. He and Daryl were no longer using a white board and a marker pen to talk. Daryl forced him to go to the sign language school to learn so they could still run their business.
Daryl had organised a babysitter for Autumn at nights to watch her while he and Merle went to night school to learn. The school in their down was the only one in the state that offered night classes to learn sign language. Merle had been resentful the first few times they had gone but he soon picked up signs and how to communicate with his daughter and his brother. On top of that Daryl had picked up the baby sitter and was knocking boots with her sometimes. But it was the times Daryl was over at his girlfriends place over night was the times that freaked him out. He taken to sleeping on the pull out trundler bed in Autumns room on those nights. He didn't want to have her calling out in the night looking for him and he couldn't hear her.e
They had adapted, they managed. Merle's daughter had asked to start a new school this term, one for hearing and non hearing children. She desperately wanted to learn to sign and learn to talk with her dad. So far Merle had been struggling with her and Daryl had been the middle man going between them. Merle had the signs for I love you, he could also say the words, but he could never hear her again, or hear her giggles or her call out to him during the night. Sometimes he woke in the morning and she would just be curled up beside him during the night, and it worried him that she'd wandered through the house and he couldn't hear her, or he didn't know if she was calling for him.
"Tell me about this woman?" Daryl signed, Merle clicked on her farmtown profile and pointed to the screen indicating that they played together, indicated that they talked a lot using the computer, clicked on messages and quickly scrolled through the hundreds of messages that had passed between them.
"Where does she live?" Daryl asked him.
"Just moved here... from... Denver." Merle spoke and signed to his brother, he was surprised with himself that he knew the sign for Denver, Daryl looked surprised too. Merle was cottoning on really quickly to more and more words than he knew he was. In the beginning Merle resented even trying, but Charlotte and Daryl made him. "She doesn't know I'm... and I haven't told her I live in Atalanta."
"You should text her." Daryl signed, he pointed to the number. Merle nodded, he wasn't sure yet. What if she rejected him. He programmed the number into his phone anyway. "Now get off the computer games and lets get some work done." Daryl signed. Merle just leaned back on the chair and laughed. Maybe he should text her, tell her, let her decide or maybe he was just happy having someone to chat to at night when he got lonely while his brother was out. TV was a bust. He couldn't keep up with the subtitles, Daryl had suggested online games but never dreaming Merle would end up chasing girls online playing games.
