Sean Connery, My Ass

I read about this woman who can’t tell the difference between voices. Unless the person is standing right in front of her, she can’t recognize male or female, child or adult, friend or foe. It’s called phonagnosia. She can recognize one voice however: Sean Connery’s. This is from an article in the Science section of the NY Times.

Come on people, really? You’re buying this? I can tell three things about this woman just from the first paragraph of the story: 1. She’s a mother. 2. She’s exhausted. 3. She’s FUNNY.

Child yelling from the other room: Where’s my shoe?

Woman with Phonagnosia: No thank you, Mr. Franklin.

This must be connected to the part of the brain that remembers voices (aren’t recognizing and remembering essentially the same thing?) which in turn is connected to identifying the name of the person speaking. Sometimes you need to go through an entire list before you get it right. This is one reason why people stick with one name, like hon or sweets or, as in my family, bub.

Morgan has never had patience with my inability to recall the names of her friends. Once I made the mistake of calling her best friend “Kelly” instead of her actual name.

Is Kelly coming over?

(all activity stops, someone picks the needle off the record) Who, Mom?

(nervously) Um. Kel----ly?

(staring at me like a gang member at a drive by) Seriously?

Kel---Kelsey. I mean Kelsey.

(she shakes her head slowly and walks away)

I think she should get a job helping those scientists who are studying phonagnosia. That woman will stop fooling.