Like many so called ‘mature’persons in this country I stand firm in refusing to admit that I may need to look into buying a hearing aid. It isn’t that I think I need one, but I do have to agree with my wife that often I miss a certain segment of our conversations. I tend to think that this condition is temporary and is a function of my being busy and nothing more.

When I’m under stress or very busy I just kind of tune everything else in my life out and concentrate upon the task at hand. Case in point, last night we went to a restaurant with our family for one of our son’s birthdays. I was relaxed and had zero difficulty hearing any and all of the conversations taking place around me. I don’t recall asking anyone to repeat anything they said and fully and completely understood all of the dialogue going on for several hours inside of a noisy atmosphere.

On the other hand, I don’t doubt my wife when she tells me that I miss a lot of the things she tells me. Whether I do this unintentionally or just choose to ignore her for some reason or another, I cannot fully answer. I think it really has to do with my personal stress level. At least that’s my opinion and my answer and I’m sticking to it.

But I will have to admit, not being able to (or perhaps wanting to) hear does have its amusing moments.

For example, we have one of those new WEII machines. You know the ones that hook up to your television and you can do exercises and games on them. Well, when you get my age and someone says ”Let’s go We”you have a tendency to conjure up completely different images in your mind than playing a game on the television. Language and words have certainly changed since I was a kid.

If you’re in the same situation, I’d suggest you start writing these little bon mots down for posterity sake. I’m sure someone is going to do a book in the coming years about what we think we hear and what was actually said. I think everyone can relate to what I’m talking about.

Let me tell you about something that happened to us a few weeks ago.

I was drinking my first cup of coffee early one morning and reading the paper as usual. My wife came into the room and starting reading a section of the paper and then she made a statement that made me look up and want to know where she had heard what I thought she had said. I know I heard her say something about ”the tamale pirates’. My first thought was that the problems had gotten so bad down in Mexico that the bad guys were starting to hijack ship loads of tamales headed for the United States. I had not ever even considered the possibility of tamales being transported by cargo ship. I asked her for more information and she wanted to know what I thought she had said. I had to confess about the tamale part even though I felt sure that was not what she had been talking about. She had been talking about SOMALI pirates’..not TAMALE pirates. Perhaps I was under stress since I had not finished my first cup of coffee.

Driving and listening to the radio is an adventure as well. I drive to some parts of Texas where radio waves do not seem to travel. These are areas so remote I don’t think short wave can get there. I don’t have one of the newer satellite radios so I have to make do with what I can tune. In some cases all you can get is a distant AM station with some hell and brimstone preacher. The last time I tuned in, I could have sworn the guy was making a sermon about ‘Cain and Abner’which immediately got my attention since I thought maybe I had overlooked that story. I was forced to slow down so I could lower the road and wind noise to see what the guy was really talking about.

I should start keeping a journal of all of these. Or better yet, I should tell my wife to keep one for me. She has a better understanding of what is actually going on.