I have to explain the name 'Stutterpuss' in case people who don't know me actually read this blog. Stuttering is what I do, and puss, or face,  is where it comes out of.  This  is the first time in my life I have to prove I stutter without it being very apparent to anyone who is hearing me. But because you are readers instead of  listeners you will never have the pleasure of hearing my stutter, unless for some reason I am forced to do a 'books on tape' version of my blogs, which would be a stuttering nightmare. Stutterers  have a lot of nightmares and unfortunately they all occur when we're awake. It's what any interaction can instantly turn into. All it takes is that first stutter and the avalanche begins. Something as simple as calling the operator for a phone number, giving a cab driver an address, giving  directions to a lost person, being lost and having to ask for directions, a stranger asking me for the time on my watch, ordering a sandwich over a counter in a deli, trying to ask a conductor something before the train doors close, being stopped to sign a petition, having to identify myself over an intercom, asking a stewardess for  a pillow,  telling a person he is in your seat, choosing paper or plastic at the checkout isle, describing my coat to the coat-check girl who can't find it, leaving a message on a voicemail, having to make a toast, complaining to a waiter, or whatever you, The Fluent, think is easy to do can be monumental for a stutterer. In the course of a day I go from one verbally hazardous situation to the next,  a stuttering minefield that could blow at any time. 

         Yesterday, during lunch, a car filled with passengers stopped in the street and rolled down the window to ask me for complicated directions. "I'm from out of town too," I apologized and shrugged my shoulders, just to avoid the guaranteed stutter on the deadly 'D' of Duboce Park and the treacherous 'S' of Safeway Supermarket.  The fact that I was wearing my hospital scrubs and obviously work at the huge hospital behind me only occurred to me after they pulled away. There have been times when I did offer my help that cars have pulled away from me before I could get out  the word I was stuck on, and other times when strangers on foot have moved away quickly after making the mistake of coming up to me for a question. I can promise you that an unintended encounter with a stutterer is amongst the most socially awkward and uncomfortable moments you will ever experience, if you haven't experienced one already, depending on how long the stutter lasts. I've seen some stutters so long at Stuttering Conventions that The Guinness Book of Records should be notified. There's kind of a Kinsey Scale of Stuttering, but instead of being a zero and totally straight or a 10 and incredibly gay, you are perfectly fluent or  it takes you five minutes to say your name. I rate myself a 3-3.5. Being part of a continuum,  I might sound less fluent than a 1.-1.5, but compared to an 8.5, I sound more eloquent of an orator than Barack Obama. 

       My longest stutter happened six years ago in  front of my ex-boyfriend Grant. I was able to clock it on my watch at one minute 20 seconds give or take a few. I was  trying to say the words "medically necessary" over the phone to an insurance agent. Try doing anything that's not enjoyable for one minute and 20 seconds and you'll see just how long it actually is.  All Grant could do was helplessly watch as I did a convulsive rain-dance around the bedroom with my head bobbing up and down like a sewing machine on high speed trying to force the words out. It became a game between us for him to time business calls I made to strangers. We would see if I could beat my personal best and stutter even longer, but 80 seconds still remains the record four years after Grant and I broke up. 

     Now Grant and our friend Ron make me order the food whenever we're hanging out and calling for delivery. The worst is when its Chinese because  the woman answering at Hunan Palace has a  hard time understanding even when someone who doesn't have a speech problem orders. As I order the appetizers and soups and entrees and give the address and my charge card number, Grant sits in front of me and Ron sits on the side, both holding their IPhones switched to video to capture my stuttering at different angles in hopes of putting it on YouTube and, if the stuttering is bad enough, it going viral.  But so far the plan has backfired and I haven't stuttered enough for it to be worthwhile. That's what makes stuttering a particularly spiteful handicap. It will always do what it wants to do, appearing when you don't want it to and disappearing when you try to make it appear.  I can't coax it out on cue no matter how hard I try. It comes when it comes. We'll just have to keep on ordering Chinese delivery, and if you ever see someone taking much too long to say Mongolian Beef and Won Ton War Soup on YouTube, you'll know it's me.