Take us forever, a whisper to a scream

With thanks to Icicle Works for the lyric.


There is nothing worse than having a cold when you're pregnant. Except losing your voice when you work in radio. So having both happen at the same time kind of sucks. But it also helps, especially since I couldn't think of anything else to blog about.




Diana over at Piffle recently had a cold and lost her voice. I know I didn't catch it from her (that would be a great trick!), but I certainly feel even more sympathy for her now.


Why is it that everyone in the world wants to call your phone when you have no voice? I started out with a squeak this morning, but by the time I got done talking to family, friends, people at work wondering where I was...I was left with a whisper. And people were asking me what was wrong with my voice.


And I've discovered that both children and animals know that this is a weakness and go out of their way to do things they shouldn't do, because how threatening is a woman in her bunny slippers screaming in a whisper?


Cat scratches the sofa (again).


"Zoe, knock that off!" She looks at me quizzically, and picks just a couple more times at an errant thread to see if I'm serious. And then I find myself whispering, "Damn it, your hearing is better than mine! I know you heard me!" Normally, she'll take off and run around the house like a mad cat when I scold her for clawing the furniture when she has not one, but TWO perfectly good scratching posts. Today, I got a slow blink, a yawn and a stretch, and a casual saunter into my bedroom. You think they've settled in?


TFYO yesterday afternoon.


I'm trying to sort out dinner and her homework and trying to clear the detritus that inevitably collects on our kitchen table. And she immediately runs back to the office and hops on the computer for her favourite activity of typing random words in Notepad, which she knows she is not supposed to do without permission.


"TFYO! Get off the computer, you know you're not supposed to be on there!"

At least, that's what I meant to say. It came out more like "Hiss, hisss, scrtich, hiss, damn it, ow!"

She can't hear me, and my husband chuckles quietly.

They're all against me.


I think I may resort to writing in LARGE letters with a Sharpie marker on brightly coloured index cards. It would make for great conversation. Kind of like Wile E. Coyote. Given the way the last couple of days have gone, I'd probably be using "Yipe!" "Help!" and "Suuuuuuper Genius", a lot. I'd also have one for "Vanilla Chai please", "No, I don't know what happened to that production order" and "Can I please just go to the bathroom by myself for once".

For a person like me who talks for a living, this is murder. It's torture. It's...it's...listening to Britney Spears.