3) Dad's hearing in his right ear is for shit, but he can read lips like nobody's business.
There are things around my household that just aren't discussed. They're not the things you may think. My dad's scars? Yeah, I know the story. Papi's track marks? A story I totally didn't want to know but Papi wanted to make a really big-assed point.
My dad's hearing? I wasn't sure when I first noticed it. I mean, he's kind of jumpy to begin with. Given all that I know that he's been through? It's not surprising. But I don't think I fully understood just how Dad and Papi synced until the day I realized that, when someone spoke to my dad on his right side and my dad didn't respond right away, Papi tended to repeat what was said, but he used different words.
Being a rebellious teen (really, I wasn't all that rebellious compared to my friends but it was pretty rebellious for our household), I figured I could smart mouth my dad if I stood on his right side and muttered my words.
What I wasn't counting on was my dad being able to lip read.
"What did you say, young man?" Dad demanded. There's no way to adequately describe just how my dad sounds when he says that phrase, but it does send fear into my soul.
And fear? Fear makes me do stupid things, like lie to my dad's face about what I had said. Dad just stared at me, so I scrambled for a better explanation. When I had finished, Dad glared and then repeated what I had originally said word-for-word.
I was toast. So were my privileges for two weeks.
"You really should know better," Papi told me later as I begged him to intervene and lessen my sentence. "Your dad spent years in SWAT. Lip-reading is essential in hostage situations." (For the record, I had to serve the two full weeks.)
So the next time I muttered under my breath on my dad's right side and he asked, "What did you say, young man?" I looked at him straight in the face and told him, complete with the curse words.
Dad was pissed, gave me the speech about 'not using those words,' but at least he didn't ground me.
