Yeah, I Guess They Work

 Okay, I make a lot of noise.  Well, maybe not more than you do, but certainly more than I thought I did.  The new hearing aids work fine.  I've had them for about a week now and, just as an audio Christopher Columbus would have experienced, a whole new world of sound has presented itself to this old goat.  The new to me music of my coffee maker announcing a ready pot, a knock at the door, a timer going off, and the cacophony of the JACKHAMMER blasting my brains out as work continues on the deck outside my door are a mixed blessing.  I will admit that the cool trick of being able to answer my cell phone and also listen to audiobooks on the devices is a real plus, but the damn things still feel like a bug is stuck in my ears.  Looking like a mental patient while walking down the street while talking is certainly of no concern as I have been doing that for years, though I will admit that blurting out "We're looking for caller 96 for those Doobie Brothers tickets right now" does provoke some interesting looks. 

The real surprise has been the amount of noise my body makes and obviously has been making for several years,  of which I have been completely unaware.  A trip to the bathroom is not unlike a Halloween haunted house adventure with special effects from beyond the grave and don't get me started on the grunts and groans of everyday life.  Okay, do get me started.  Heretofore I had no clue about the "oofs", "ughs", sighs, and moans not to mention the sub rosa of profanity readily available to emanate instantaneously from my lips during the slightest bit of effort.   It's embarrassing!  Picking up the morning paper--yes, I still get one--tying my shoes and getting out of my chair is a catastrophic symphony of audio effort.  I keep looking around for my grandpa.

Eating sounds are a trip down memory lane.  I remember when I was a kid being grossed out by all the smacking and chewing noise associated with mastication.  Well, that's all back!  Just eating an apple sounds like a building demolition or a terrorist IED going off inside my head.  (By the way, how much mastication is too much mastication?)  I have nearly decided to forego wearing hearing aids during meals.  Well, either that or to simply go ahead and starve to death.  Let's see how I feel about that in a week or two.

All things considered, the move to old guy ears has been fairly trouble-free.  I'm saving time and effort by eliminating "huh" and "beg pardon" from my verbal quiver and it's nice to discover that not every movie actor mumbles as much as Marlon Brando.  That whole closed caption experience was getting tiresome.  

I do plan to lay off the aids whenever political commentary rears its ugly head during the weeks ahead and for damn sure won't be employing them anytime music recorded after 1985 foists itself upon my sensibilities.  There is only so much punishment a geezer can take!  

"Turn that crap down!"

  

What Was That? Another Benchmark?

 Benchmarks, life's mile markers or lines of demarcation, are mostly positive reminders of goals attained or problems solved.  We all recall the first kiss, making a team, getting our driver's license, marriages, and the passing of loved ones and friends.  As we age those benchmarks tend to be more negative than positive.  A doctor tells us to lose weight, major medical problems surface and we notice there are suddenly activities we can no longer perform.  Our bodies wear out in spite of exercise, vitamins, the elimination of bad habits and our own sheer will power.   In other words, it's a short ride from the halleluiah to the hoot.

"You don't have to shout!", my mother would exclaim when everyone clearly had to do just that in order for her to hear a word being said.  She stubbornly refused to even consider hearing aids well into her eighties because "they were for old people".  Time and again my brother and I would explain that hearing aids were no different than wearing glasses, but she just couldn't make the leap.  Now, I think she may have had a point.

This coming Monday, at age 72, I pick-up my new hearing aids.  Granted, they're far less obvious than those bulky contraptions of old but there is still no getting past the idea that the "old guy" just got his foot a little further inside my door.  Damn!  What's next?  A walker and a lifetime supply of Metamucil?  

I blame the #%$*&! Chinese and their stupid Covid virus.  Until the whole "let's all wear masks and look like we're sticking up a bank" sartorial movement, I feined being in on conversations by becoming a master lip reader.  Of course, I didn't know this until there were no lips to read.  I was lost in a sea of masks and mumbles.  That all ends Monday.

I can't say I didn't see it coming.  Forty years of wearing headphones that blasted screaming guitars and car commercials at me for four hours a day with the volume cranked up to mach 1 probably didn't do my acoustic receptors any good, but it sure beat working for a living.  When radio was good, it was great; there was no better place to be.

These days, having retired to the relative quiet of northern Idaho, it'll be interesting to test drive these new hearing aids. I'm told I'll hear things I haven't heard in a long time. (Maybe some of them I won't want to hear!)  I do know that there will be one appreciative blonde lady with younger far less abused ears who won't have to leave the room because the TV is too loud.  For her, I'm glad to do it.  She's worth it.

So, another benchmark noted in a life filled with mostly good ones. With these new aids, I hope to enjoy a return to the hearing of my youth, or at least a reasonable facsimile.  (What's next, a resumption of my athletic career?  Oh, wait, that never happened.)  I anticipate positive developments but do plan to remove the damn things when the news is on.  Why risk my sanity?  I'm getting too old for that!