Can You Hear Me Now?

We had dinner with our friend Roger last Friday night. Dinner with Roger usually involves shouting.

Not because he’s argumentative – well, no more than the rest of us, and that’s just for sport.

It’s because, like many of us who have a bit of grey in their hair, he has trouble hearing.

I SAID, ROGER HAS TROUBLE HEARING.

It’s a problem that’s compounded when you get in a cavernous restaurant with a lot of ambient noise, especially if they insist on live music somewhere in the place. As a result, the question answered frequently isn’t the one asked.

Here’s something I don’t understand – if you’re in a bar or a club, yeah, you are there for the music. If you’re in a white-tablecloth restaurant with other people, why would the owners think that you are there to hear music so loud that it isn’t possible to talk to the people across the table?

I don’t blame him at all for the confusion – I can’t hear either and am every bit as guilty of answering the wrong question as anyone else. Plus I forget to speak up and use my “outside” voice inside the restaurant, which compounds the problem for those I’m with.

Friday night held a breakthrough announcement, though.

Roger is being fitted for hearing aids, and we got a run down on the process. It’s a lot more complicated than just raising your hand when you hear the tone and sticking an electronic bean in your ear.

Lest anyone think that I’m making fun of Roger, let me correct you. I’m envious.

My ears have rang for at least the last 5 years, loudly enough to wake me from a sound sleep at times. Lately, one has changed tones and instead of ringing a nice C-E-G resolved chord, they now are about half a tone off of each other resulting in something unresolved in a minor tone.

Plus it means I have to up the bars on the television another notch or two. Unfortunately, my hearing loss isn’t yet to the point that hearing aids would help, nor will that stop the ringing.

Anyhow, Roger has gone through several rounds of testing and has had wax impressions made of his ears. Commercial wax, not ear wax. This isn’t a do-it-yourself project.

The amazing thing is that there’s about as much variety in hearing aids as there are in automobiles, and you have to select type, style, color and – most importantly – price range.

These puppies run anywhere from one to five thousand dollars.

Each.

The cheap ones are what you hear whistling at a funeral with a largely geriatric audience, accompaniment to the hymns in a dozen different keys and time signatures and wives elbowing their husbands and giving them “the look” that means “FIX IT NOW”.

Do women’s hearing aids never whistle?

When confronted with the choices, Roger went midrange – not the cheap ones, because he was in sales for years and knows that you get what you pay for, but on the other hand there’s no need to get something that channels interplanetary aliens in 16 different languages and provides GPS services via satellite.

Something that allows dinner conversation and means others can be in the room without wincing while you’re watching television is the goal.

So I’m envious. Roger will get to watch television without driving everyone else from the house and can hear dinner conversation again.

I’d be happy if I could just get the ringing in my ears back in tune.