Not the Nobel Prize but an Ear-y Sense of the Unexpected

By Fred Bruning

Oct. 13, 2024

    If you have been waiting patiently for a hearing aids update, the moment has arrived.

    Mostly in this category are wives who complain that their husbands are nearly stone deaf and refuse intervention or that hubby bought hearing aids but wears them as often as cufflinks.

    If only the men would face facts.

   “You wouldn’t believe the excuses,” said one forlorn spouse.

    Oh, yes, I would, because I was among the recalcitrant fellows, bobbing and weaving for years as my wife, Wink, gently at first, then more emphatically, pleaded for relief.

    “Huh?” I would joke. “Couldn’t hear a word you said.”

    Anyway, as previously reported, resistance finally collapsed and, several weeks ago, I began life as an aurally-enhanced older adult and can claim continued progress.

    This is not news on a scale with two American scientists winning a Nobel Prize for breakthrough genetic work by careful examination of roundworms but I have the feeling you didn’t expect as much.

     Bottom line, I hear better albeit in sometimes strange fashion.

    Wink’s directives are clearer.

    “Drink water after your walk, you need to hydrate,” I hear her say loud and clear, as she pours from the Brita pitcher.

    “We absolutely do need an order of sauteed broccoli with the pizza – roughage, Vitamin C, Vitamin K.”

    “Looks like the dehumidifier needs emptying again. Careful not to spill.”

    I miss some words, of course – mistook help for kelp, the other day – but, in all, household conversation is greatly improved.

    At the same time, I am still adjusting to newly vivid sounds of nature.

    A woodpecker’s pleasant rat-a-tat, for instance, now seems seem as though a carpenter is busily installing board and batten on the side of my head.

     The buzz of a mosquito suggests a Piper Cub is soon to land in our backyard.

     Distant dog barks seem as close as when crime-fighting Sergeant Preston of the Yukon assured the broadcast audience and his beloved malamute, King, “this case is closed,” and King would concur with an exuberant, “arr-rowfff!”

     It also is entirely possible to be at a restaurant and deep in discussion with friends when – as though from a distant radio station – fraught words from several tables away beam in.

     “You said what to my mother?”

     “She asked. I told.”

    Everyone with hearing aids has similar experiences.

    And here’s a new development.

    An interesting feature of my particular brand is that when I remove the appliances from the charger each morning and finally locate them in my ears a tiny fanfare arises as if to signal a day of unbounded potential.

    Ta-da-ta-da!  You’re still alive. Just imagine. Try to make the most of it.

    The hearing aids are small – rubbery inserts no bigger than baby aspirin attached by translucent wire to a mini-transmitter resting behind the ear – and you easily can forget about them.

    Twice this meant I was in the shower wondering why it sounded like Niagara.

    Had I suddenly boarded the Maid of the Mist?

    Accordingly, I had to step out, shivering, and unplug. No damage done. The aids are waterproof. Marvelous.

    I have a Niagara story that may relate.

    Boyhood friends, Carl, and his younger brother, Billy, went to the Falls with their parents, who I called Aunt Edna and Uncle Ed.

    Niagara is magnificent but terrifying – water cascading at the precipice, the endless roar, the fog from below – and even more awesome as you neared what in those days was a somewhat minimalist guard rail on the American side. I visited once as a kid.  Nightmares ever since.

    At some point, Carl near the brink, spotted in the water something of interest – paper airplane, we were told, or maybe a balsa wood glider – and, unbelievably, as per Edna and Ed, reached out a bit too far and might have been swept away if not for Billy, younger but more mindful, who yanked his brother back.

    Billy, maybe 8, emerged a hero. Carl, 11, or so, emerged alive.

    Returning to the shower, I thought of the boys, and that old story, and how easily one thing can make you think of another.

    Today, Niagara. Tomorrow, who knows? Maybe I’ll find an old Sgt. Preston episode on the internet or ponder a vintage Woody Woodpecker cartoon.

    Recalcitrant men with bad hearing: Heed your wives.  Get wired. The unexpected awaits.

    Arr-rowfff!

    Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive