Today, I had plans to eat lunch with Darian at 11:00- because it's Monday, and I have class at 10:00, 12:00, but not at 11:00.
We swiped ourselves into the Cannon Center and what not, and...what not. She left to find a table, and I was standing in the salad bar- and, alas, I lost her, because that's what I'm just really, really good at.
Anyway, when I found her again, she'd been approached by a guy named Chris who asked her if he could sit there. One would assume she said yes, because there he was, at the table.
We did the small talk thing- the "where are you from"s and "what are you studying"s.
But then--and I do have to give Darian props for serious observance--she asked him why he was half-deaf.
I hadn't heard him say that he was half-deaf, but I'll be honest. I'm not the greatest observer. So I didn't really think much of it and just assumed that I'd...missed it. But then, I realized that he looked just as puzzled as I did.
So anyway, as it turns out, Chris was in a bad accident a couple of years ago, which resulted in a fractured skull. He lost 25% of his hearing (including mostly high-frequency pitches, which means...womens' voices. Haha, ha...this was a small source of gender humor), some of his balance, and went to speech and physical therapy following the accident.
But guess what else?
He had half of his head shaved at the hospital, in order to make way for one impressive scar, running from his ear, up around the back of his head- just like, oh, I don't know....
ME!
So, in the spirit of "there's a first for everything"--I can safely say that this was the first time in my life that, as a person with a largely scarred head, I was in the majority at our little lunch table of three.
You never know.
