I am actually getting older and I am partially deaf (PD) due so many years as a hard-rock musician, and partially blind (PB) due to too many years with my head hanging out a pickup window. I have noticed that many of my geriatric friends seem to be cupping their ears or responding with something totally unrelated to the question or the subject of the conversation. Take a pool party as an example. When PDers try to jump into a conversation in an attempt to be included, usually what we contribute has nothing to do with the subject being discussed or can relate to a topic that was discussed by the group minutes before and they have moved on to another topic, or even swimming in the pool at that point or downing shots at the bar.
In my experience, common reactions to me when I say, “Say what?” or, “Say again?” is to pretend like they didn’t hear me, or just roll their eyes and repeat whatever they mumbled before exactly the way they did before. It can be either into their Dolly Partons, which tend to have a dampening effect, or at their belt buckle, if they can see it, or their shoes if they are young or don’t drink beer. It is as if the bosom or the buckle or the shoes ask them to repeat the question, not me. But NEVER repeated louder and directly toward my face where my ears are. Or even the best option yet, shouting adjacent to my good ear—if they know it (hint: right).
Meanwhile, in my basement research lab, after exhausting ourselves dancing the “Monster Mash,” my disturbed son, Eager Igor Greegor, and I are feverishly working on the PD problem. We are designing a totally revolutionary style of hearing aid. It will be partially worn in the ear, like obsolete ones, but it will have a component that gives off a shrill piercing sound at decibels too high for the sufferer to hear but in the normal hearing range of the PD abuser, and enough to temporarily deafen them. For an hour, the abuser will know what it is like to keep repeating, “Say what?”
Igor and I’ve decided on two models. Model A will produce a sound that mimics the sound of finger nails scraping across a black board. Model B will produce a sound that will mimic the screams of a tom mountain lion searching for a female in estrus. They will be sold exclusively through Costco. Our hope is that the PD abuser will either shout into the PDer’s ear the next time, or use a megaphone, or simply flee knowing what’s coming.
I have a very good PD friend who tells the story about the time when he and his wife were in the car, and she said after a period of fruitless dialogue, “Honey, you need to get your hearing tested.” And he turned to her with a snarly look and said, “Why the hell would I need to get my urine tested?”
The problem of being partially blind (PB) but not enough so that your insurance will pay for a white cane or a German Shepard because you can still legally drive—as long as you wear your Coke-bottle-bottom-glasses that weigh 8 lbs.—is another geriatric pain-in-the-ass. But, PBness requires an essay of its own.
