A Small Vocabulary

Boom-boom time again. Kootch is asleep.

This may be a good time to describe the language of deniability in greater detail. In descending order of violence the words of this language are:

The bowling ball drop. This one is too violent to be called a stomp. The drop happens just above me. It is quite startling. The room shakes. Things rattle.

The stomp. This also happens just above me but is much less violent than the drop.

The wall bang. This can happen in other rooms or in the 'same' room. Much less violent than the stomp. The wall bang produces a deep booming sound.

The thump. Not a drop, or a stomp, or a bang, or a tap. Just a thump. The thump might be a timid wall bang or the result of a small object being dropped.

The tap. Taps can be loud, medium, or barely detectable. Taps can indicate approval, agreement, or simply 'interest.' For example, most of the time they will tap the floor or wall in the bathroom above when I pee. This behavior may be a reaction to my bathroom fan, which is fairly loud. I turn that fan on before I start peeing in order to reduce 'shy bladder syndrome.' If you have ever tried to pee when you knew somebody was listening or watching you know what I mean by shy bladder syndrome. They must not like that fan. They also tap in the kitchen and in the living room. In the kitchen such taps may indicate simply, 'I see you' or 'I know you're in the kitchen.' In the living room such taps usually seem to indicate 'agreement' to something I've said, either to Kootch or to the tv. Kootch appears not to notice these taps. Come to think of it, the taps tend to be louder in noisy environments. I suppose the idea is to be heard above the ambient noise. When I am in bed next to the two window fans running at full power the noise level is quite high and the 'taps' need to be quite loud. The bedroom is the only place where they employ what I will call the 'anticipation thump.' This thump seems to be timed to my cough: they have just released a dose of gas and they try to time the thump to my first cough. I have used this knowlege to dive under the covers during times of heavy gassing, escaping much of it.

So they have a vocabulary of five 'words,' all deniable, of course.