I nearly forgot to post an amusing thing that happened at Friday night's Phantoms game. Mark doesn't have a season ticket seat anymore, but he's usually been able to get the seat adjacent to mine when he comes to games. Not so on Friday night; the closest seat he could get was the one about two rows behind me.

A woman and her senior-citizen dad were sitting immediately to Mark's left. She saw that Mark wears hearing aids and mentioned, prior to the game, that he might want to turn the volume down on the left hearing aid since she tends to yell a lot at games. Mark thought this was hilarious, got my attention, and then the three of us wound up chatting. It turns out that the lady's dad is deaf and that her sister and brother sign. Oddly enough, she didn't specify whether SHE or her DAD can sign, but it sounded from the way she phrased herself during the conversation that she knows at least some signs.

So Mark helpfully ;o) mentioned my tendency to insult the referee in ASL when I disagree vehemently with a call. I offered up one or two of the milder signs like tiny blockhead. (Look for that sign in Children of a Lesser God, where the tweaked-for-network-TV version utilized the translation of "peabrain".) The lady appeared to know that sign, so I figured she'd know some of the, er, more colorful signs as well. I promptly made a mental note not to cuss the ref in ASL at any point during the game. Or at least to make the grouchiest signs down around the area of my lap, where no one would easily be able to see them. ;o)

In the long run, I just left that particular portion of my vocabulary arsenal unused during Friday's game. And believe me, the way the first half of the game was officiated, refraining from offering some candid opinions took no small amount of conscious effort. But I managed it.