For years, my sister screamed at me that half of what she said was missing from me. However, I thought my brain had developed a habit of selectively muting her over the 60 years I had been trying to adjust her chili.
Then my boyfriend told me to check my hearing. He was grateful that I allowed him to play music more than his previous girlfriend. However, it seemed like I hadn't heard what he was saying unless he faced me and talked.
"That's right!" I said. "You're calling me from another room! Or speak when you have your back turned! If you speak to me face to face, if that's the polite thing to do, I will listen to everything you say well."
I was very frustrated that I couldn't convey to him that when I drove with my son, he reached for the radio as if he was turning up his volume. However, everyone knew that my son was a kind soul and didn't want to disturb the air with too many sound waves.
In fact, his whole generation spoke too softly! Recent students were so afraid of upsetting their classmates that they hardly whispered. I am grateful for being able to retire before the pandemic hit. If anyone's mouth had been muffled by a mask, I would have spent the whole semester asking them to repeat their comments.
However, my sister continued to bother me to check my hearing. And one of my close friends suggested that she might have a point. Finally, I made an appointment with an otolaryngologist. Despite his Harvard University diploma, he opted for a device that was more suitable for Moe or Groucho.
"Bon!" After tapping the tuning fork against his knee, he placed it on my forehead. When he put headphones on my ears and asked me to reach out to indicate if I heard the sound, I felt like I traveled back to the early 1960s when all the kids in elementary school were sent to the nurse to be tested with the same technology.
Still, the test results were difficult to shrug off. Terrible faking is not difficult. It's just pretending not to hear the beeps and boops. But if you really didn't hear it, it's hard to pretend to hear the beeps and boops.
My hearing loss was "moderate." An audiologist, unlike a tumor doctor or a heart specialist,...