The ASBO gardener aka papa has suffered for years with poor hearing, although on some occasions you are left to wonder if it is just as bad as he says, I am positive that he has developed an acute case of selective hearing allied to his hearing problem.
Now I am not saying that he has fooled the Doctors for the last thirty years, I am not saying he does not have an affliction, which to be honest must be awful, especially when you are in company and you struggle to follow the conversation direction. No I do not doubt that he has a problem with his ears, however I do sometimes wonder just how severe it really is.
The other day I mentioned to the law enforcer aka the wife, that I had made a cream cake to have as a wee treat with our evening cuppa, now the ASBO gardener aka papa, was not even in the same room that this conversation was taking place in, but some how managed to hear the word cake from the adjoining room and even offered to make the hot drinks to go with it!!!
The ability to be able to tune out all around you and select the bits you want is something that must take years of practice. The same selective hearing, is used in the reverse to the cake story, when the ASBO gardener aka papa simply wants to do something his way, he uses the excuse that he miss heard you, and that he had done the job as asked.
The whole thing is, it is very difficult to argue with someone that can tune you out, and not only that you are in danger of being unreasonable, because there is a chance with a loss of hearing that hey he is telling the truth!
Musing over this wee problem of his ability to hear certain things got me to thinking about my younger days and therefore his and it was during this wee look back in time that I realised he was using this technique then to avoid listening to my mum. He would hear his dinner going on from the shed, but if asked to tackle some job around the house, he somehow would miss hear this to sound like off you go fishing!
Looking back over the last few years in this house it suddenly dawned on me that there were a number of projects that we had undertaken after a great deal of planning, I say planning when it should really be arguing over the detail, only for it to end up as he had first described he would like it to be, despite the fact he had clearly lost the argument in the first place!
So a skill that has had forty years to my knowledge to be fine tuned and played upon and used by a master craftsman in selective hearing was definitely being used, backed up with a now genuine hearing problem, meaning as I said before that you just cant question it.....cunning or what?
Now like all skills in life that we develop over time there is usually a succession to the younger generations within the family unit, almost like evolution, we learn certain skills from our elders that we feel will allow us to gain even the smallest of advantages in life.
This skill has been missed by several generations of family, and the fact that I am just coming to the conclusion that he has been using it for years just shows you how well disguised it was that no other family members have mimicked it...until now.
The wee one is the master craftsman's apprentice!
The wee one has been using this 'skill' for a few weeks now, this I know by using the best and until now the only proven skill inherited by us all, hindsight! The other day I was sowing grass seed and putting sand down to help the process, the wee one likes to help in these matters and indeed she is a good wee gardener. However the use of sand and the explanation given by me for it was obviously screened out by her using her new skill, as was the bit about not using her sand from the sandpit.
The proof of this was there for all to see when I returned from my wee break to continue the jobs in hand, where I had put down sand now stood sand castles and where there was grass to start with...aye stood sand castles! Further evidence as if it were required was put on show later that day when the water pistol was aimed at everything it should not be aimed at including me!!!
Sadly for the young apprentice, her new found 'skill' landed her on the naughty step, perhaps she should have had a companion along side her, something that had not eluded her, as she patted the space beside her and shouted for her papa to join her! You know she does have a wee case!
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