School Crud is a thing, and in the modern age of Covid, it’s only more of a threat than ever before.

With three kids in elementary, and one of them being special needs, I know what’s coming, a season of snotty noses, fevers, coughs, aches, pains, and general misery.

YAY for public education. (I’m all for it, I just dread communicable diseases)

Two years ago, I ended up with a cold that robbed me of my voice for weeks, much to the gratefulness of my long-suffering wife, however it presented something new to bother her.

I started communicating in American Sign Language.

She wondered how I had learned it.

Admittedly, I should have learned it sooner. Growing up, one of my best friends had grandparents who used it as their sole means of communication, but I didn’t learn it then.

I learned it instead, from an old Italian plumber who smoked a carton of cigarettes a day. Since his voice box was little more than a nicotine and tar coated cancer risk, and yelling gave him a headache, and, as he put it, he “ALREADY TALKED WITH HIS HANDS”, he forced anyone and everyone who worked with him to learn some basic ASL so we could communicate with him over distances and the many loud noises of a jobsite.

Granted, ASL is an ever-evolving language, and some things I learned were more homebrew and colloquial than what is actually used, but it was a good foundation for what has followed.

I am by no means, fluent, but I can use enough to understand my friends who have to rely on it when their hearing aids fail.