“She has the voice of an angel” is a comment that will never grace my ears unless I happen to be lurking nearby someone else who is the intended recipient. I have the voice of a buffalo with a nasty cold which means that I’m always irrationally jealous of people who have an innate ability to sing well. I once considered voice lessons, but I have come to truly believe there are just people in the world who need to fulfill the role of listener.
I first realized that my voice had an undesirable quality to it when I was in elementary school. I was one of those kids with a speech impediment specifically concerning the letter “R.” For some reason, the speech therapist thought it would be helpful if I could hear myself talking wrong so she stuck this contraption on my noggin which I can only describe as a carved-out, plastic-shelled headset. When I talked, the sound of my improperly pronounced words carried to my own ears.
Intelligent is not a word I would have used to describe my voice. From my perspective, I sounded like a cross between Eeyore and Chewbacca. This did nothing to help with my already low self-esteem and, instead, catapulted me into a bout of chronic shyness.
You can’t keep a cap on an active geyser forever and, by the time I entered the sixth grade, I began to emerge from my shell. On one particular occasion, my friend, Leilani, and I decided to loudly belt out a popular 80s tune on the school bus at approximately 7:15 am. People are generally not ready for impromptu a cappella performances that early in the morning. Unfortunate for us, our rendition of the Beastie Boys’ “Paul Revere” captured the attention of the neighborhood bully who threatened to beat us up if we didn’t stop. I suppose music appreciation was not something she practiced with any degree of regularity.
Though I tackled and overcame my “R” problem, my singing voice never did mature. I restricted my faulty pipes to the shower and the car until I discovered the liberating bliss of karaoke.
Originally, I was known to be highly opinionated about people singing karaoke and frequently discussed the possibility of carrying a license for the privilege, but then I realized that singing can be so much more fun if you change the style of the song. My breakout performance was a punk rendition of the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song. Since then, I have perfected a twangy Southern song voice along with the ability to play a mean air guitar.
Though I’m no stranger to public humiliation, I just can’t bring myself to destroy the beautiful sound of our congregation singing together at church. Most of the time, I barely whisper the hymns unless I have one or two empty rows in front of me.
In addition to my inability to carry a tune in a bucket, I also sound mannish, especially on the phone. When I worked in accounts receivable, people would call and ask to speak to the gentleman they had just been talking with about their bill.
Sometimes, customers would say “Yes, sir” and then I’d have to embarrass them with the correction of my gender, but they could never disguise the surprise in their voice. I wouldn’t even bother correcting a few people as long as they paid their account in full.
Like many who are destined to have a face for radio, I suppose I possess a voice for print. Not a bad trade if you ask me.
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