Deaf as a post
For years I have been in denial about my hearing impairment, blaming it on wax build-up and congestion, while secretly recognizing that my experience of a typical soundscape is akin to that of a skin diver trapped in a massive reverberating fishbowl, especially in venues such as bars or restaurants where milling clots of revelers tend to bellow all at once.
I find myself zoning out, especially in crowds, and most frequently with folks speaking French and Spanish, to wit, my second and third languages.
Recently I took the bull by the bullhorn, bit the sound bullet, and consulted an auditory specialist, who put me through a battery of tests that quickly dispelled the wax and congestion hypotheses and even excluded the long-clung-to notion that I lost my decibel range from listening to countless hours of ear-splitting rock music during my illustrious youth, turning ear drums to quivering mush by cranking up such edifying classics as In-A -Gadda-da- Vida (c. 1968) to full blast for hours at a time, especially during sessions of cannabis-induced catatonic bliss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIVe-rZBcm4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Now my father was also hearing challenged, and I was as intolerant of his affliction as he was of my erstwhile hippie lifestyle. He was too proud and stubborn to wear a hearing aid, so by the time he turned 60, we had to holler mightily in order to communicate with him. (Dad talked incessantly and wasn’t, shall we say, a “good listener,” so being deaf as a doornail was a great boon to and ideal excuse for his incessant one-way stream-of-consciousness yammering.) To my everlasting shame, I would become so impatient with his rock-like imperviousness that I would typically approach to within a couple of inches of his face, ostentatiously cup my hands, and scream, “Did you hear us, Dad?” upon which he would growl, “You don’t have to shout; I’m not deaf.” (Given my current plight, my sons won’t let me forget the reprehensible bullying they witnessed in my inglorious past incarnation as a hearing person.)
Of course, nowadays having entered into a dialogue with impending Death, I’m hearing a siren song of a different sort, to which I’m unable to turn a deaf ear.
Your friend,
Robert
P.S.
Of course, there have always been cartoons and sitcoms focusing, sometimes cruelly, on codgers like me who irritate family members with their hearing issues.
The most brilliant such depiction, in my view, is of Mrs. Richards in the iconic series Fawlty Towers, featuring the inimitable John Cleese as hotel manager Basil Fawlty. Check out Mrs. Richards here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVMgtv9oIM4
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/
https://www.instagram.com/robertmcbrydeauthor/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-mcbryde-44051122/
Hearing and deafness are definitely issues of major concern for many, as witness the number of idiomatic expressions spawned by these issues:
https://theenglishfarm.com/blog/idioms-all-ears
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/deaf
https://hearmeoutcc.com/deaf-as-idioms/
https://www.learn-english-today.com/idioms/idiom-categories/body/ears.html
Cheers!