Noisy Kitchen

Can a girl get some quiet around here?!

My head and ears have been pounding all week from the thunderstorms that keep rolling through, so I haven’t felt like emptying the dishwasher.  It finally had to be done tonight, as the dirty dishes were stacked up and we didn’t have any clean plates or silverware left in the cabinets.  Brandt was in the kitchen making dinner, so I dragged my aching head in there to work on it.

He was listening to his iPod through earphones instead of his usual iCom, since we still haven’t gotten his repaired hearing aid back (it’s been 3 weeks).  I heard a strange shrieking noise, which at first I thought was coming through his earphones.  He paused the iPod, and watched with confusion as I ran around the kitchen, turning my head from one side to the other, trying to find the source of the noise.  Finally I found it—his hearing aids were sitting on the kitchen table and he hadn’t turned one of them off, so it was shrieking from the feedback.

When I started unloading the dishwasher, carefully and quietly, Brandt ran over to help.  “No, no!  I got it!” I insisted.  “But, I want to help!” he said sweetly.  “I know, and I appreciate it, but I got it!” I insisted harder.  The problem is, Brandt doesn’t realize just how LOUD dishes and silverware can be when they’re getting put away, and with my headache I knew I couldn’t take all that noise.  I like being in control of the dishes so I can gently put them up.

Here is Deaf cartoonist Matt Daigle’s take on the situation:

When we first moved into our house, Brandt used to wake me up just about every morning when he got out his cereal bowl.  Even through my earplugs, I could hear (and feel) the SLAM! of the kitchen cabinets, which share the same wall as the master bedroom.  Finally I’d had enough and moved the bed to other side of the room, and the cabinets don’t bother me anymore.

Back to tonight:  we were about to sit down to eat, when I heard Cupcake meowing loudly.  At first I figured she was just mad that I hadn’t offered her any of our roasted chicken and ignored her.  But she kept getting louder and more insistent, and it seemed odd that she wasn’t actually in the kitchen meowing for chicken.  I asked, “Cupcake?  Where are you?”  She loudly responded.  It sounded like she was in the hallway, so I ran to the back of the house.  No cat.  Now it sounded like she was in the living room, so I ran back.  Still no cat; and now the meows sounded painful.  Brandt again took out his earphones and looked at me with a very confused expression as I ran around the kitchen, meowing back, and yelling, “Where are you?  Where are you?!”  He opened the pantry to get some chips, and out ran a very distraught little cat.  Apparently she had gone snooping while he was making dinner, and he’d accidentally locked her in there. 

After dinner, I plopped down on the couch and prepared for a few minutes of blissful silence.  A big clap of thunder immediately shook the house, and it started pouring down rain.  I give up!