Pleeeeeease?

“Stop it!” I yelled as my voice was starting to hurt more than my head. My sister laughed and pointed, self satisfied, while my mom cupped her hand over her mouth in a failed attempt to conceal her laughter.

“I’m being serious, stop it, right now!!” In rage, I screamed again in my highest, whiniest voice. Another burst of laughter erupted, and tears streamed down my face.

“Sweetie, I’m sorry, Its just difficult to take you seriously sometimes when you are screaming in such a high voice,”  My mom laughed and I backed away.

“ I can’t control my voice!” I yelled in a final attempt, and stormed out of the living room.

Though I don’t anymore, when I was young, I had a very high pitched voice. I was always aware of this when I was little, and more often that not, my voice didn’t matter too much for me. As a little girl, having a voice like mine, along with being shorter than average, was considered cute to my peers. I learned this quickly, and I tried to use it to my advantage.

In kindergarten, pretzel day was the highlight of our school week. On thursdays, our teacher would send us downstairs to a makeshift pretzel stand that the 5th graders ran. Everyone was ecstatic and we would run down to get the first spot in line. Pretzels were only fifty cents, but I was a forgetful kid. I would always try to remember to ask my parents for pretzel money, but I rarely did. When my friends had no money to spare, I was forced to go up to the counter empty handed. I looked up at the big fifth grader and explained in my cutest voice.

“Pleeeeeese?” I asked sweetly. I remember the girl giving me the pretzel, pulling me to the side and saying:

“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” she smiled as she handed me a warm pretzel. I nodded happily and ran back upstairs. I tried using these techniques on my parents, and they began to pay off. I was manipulative and I knew it.

As I got older, my voice began to change. At age eight I still had a high voice, but it had gotten  lower. However, I still wasn’t growing taller and I was easily mistakable for somebody much younger. My so called “techniques” didn’t seem to work on my parents anymore. From years of learning to beg things from my parents or teachers, I seemed to shift into a higher octave when I was pleading. My parents recognized this, and refused to give me what I wanted when I asked for things in that tone. My parents worked with me to stop using that tone, and they would try to alert me when I was doing it. My dad would note my deviousness by saying:

“Zoe you are using your little voice” As an eight year old, this made me angry. Many times I shifted into this voice unintentionally, and I believed I could not control it. When my parents told me otherwise, I would get angry and try to explain to them that it was simply the way I spoke. Ultimately, my high voice became even more common, now happening when I was begging and upset.

By age ten, my high voice had become a part of who I was. My best friends even began to recognize when I went higher. In my family my voice was still present. At that time, our house only had one desktop computer that my older sister and I would share. When we didn’t want to play the same games together, the computer was the center of many of our arguments. One spring morning, we both wanted to get on at the same time, but neither of us was willing to sacrifice for the other. I tried to get her off of the computer chair, but I finally gave up after the realization that getting her off of the chair was nearly impossible. I stormed out of the room and told my sister that she had thirty minutes to play on the computer by herself. I waited patiently and watched the clock as I sat angrily in my room. After the time was up, I ran downstairs and into the computer room to find the door shut. I pushed on the door and felt a weight against the other side.

“Brigit, I know that you are pushing against the door, let me in!” I yelled through the small crack at the bottom of the door.

“No!! I never agreed to your rules!” my sister screamed back. I pushed on the door against my sisters weight. Each time I felt the door open just slightly, and then shut once more. I gave one final push and felt a release. As I gave the hardest push of all, my sister let go of the door and I tumbled face first into the computer room. I sat for a moment, too stunned to get up. I soon rose and began to cry for help. My mom rushed into the room and gave me ice for my head. My mom carefully asked us both what happened. When my sister explained that I had tried to kick her out of the computer room, I was furious. I yelled at her to stop talking, but she continued. I was angry, and nobody could take me seriously.

“I’m being serious, stop it, right now!!” In rage, I screamed again in my highest, whiniest voice. Another burst of laughter erupted, and tears streamed down my face.

“Sweetie, I’m sorry, Its just difficult to take you seriously sometimes when you are screaming in your little voice,”  My mom laughed and I backed away.

“ I can’t control my voice!” I yelled in a final attempt, and stormed out of the living room.

I ran back into my bedroom and slammed my door. A few minutes later I heard a knock. My mom came in and apologized for laughing at me. She said that she knew I couldn’t control my voice, and in fact that wasn’t what they were laughing at at all. My mom was just laughing about how I was overreacting about the computer and my sister agreed. She said that she couldn’t care less what I sounded like, but when I act immature it is hard for her to take me seriously. I thought about what they said and I apologized to them both for acting immature.

Soon after, I outgrew my high voice. After that argument with my mom, I started to notice when I changed my voice. Age has helped me realized how silly my arguments with my sister were. I know now that using my high voice turned into a subconscious way for my brain to get what I wanted, but it did the opposite as I grew up. Though I sometimes still worry about I sound like, I now try to be as candid as possible with my voice. When speaking about language, Mike Rose says in his essay, I just wanna be average: “It is a powerful and effective defence- it neutralizes the insult and the frustration of being a vocational kid, and when preferred, it drives teachers up the wall, a delightful secondary effect. But like on strong magic, it comes at a price.” Oddly enough,  I think that having my high voice taught me that there is always a bad side to the good. The price I thought I was paying ended up being the thing that finally made me realize and grow out of the voice I was using. As clever as I thought I was tricking the 5th graders out of pretzels, that bad habit stuck with me, and has made me who I am today.