Carrol Vertrees: Hear me out on some sound advice
Carrol Vertrees March 31, 2012 8:24PM
Carrol Vertrees
Updated: May 2, 2012 8:09AM
Now listen up. There is more to hearing aids than meets the ear.
Those little things should be in ears except when you are swimming, going to bed, tuning out your spouse, ducking the minister’s homily on the blessed art of giving, etc., etc.
They are elusive little devils when they hide. They just lie there quietly after their batteries die, in smug slumber.
Our son called the other day from Florida, where we had enjoyed five weeks of rent-free ease. We had spent lots of the time looking for a lost hearing aid — the only one of mine that worked. I missed a lot of bad jokes and witticisms.
His message was that they found my lost hearing helper hiding under our bed — they were reviving the room we had used. The little thing was sound asleep in its comfortable solitude.
I don’t know how it got there, but this case reminds me that it is a good idea to look under beds wherever you are. My hearing will be one-sided until I get the other one fixed at the hearing aid garage.
The most sickening experience I have had in my hide-and-seek games with hearing aids involves a lesson everybody who uses those things should learn: Do not walk on your hearing aids. I reached for one of mine when I awoke early in semi-darkness, but fumbled. It fell to the floor I knew not where, blending with the carpet of a similar hue. (These things should come in bright colors!) I backed up a step and found it — actually I heard it — CRUNCH!
I picked it up, tearfully apologizing, but of course it could not hear. I thought of Humpty Dumpty, busted beyond repair.
The fellow at the hearing aid place said in his scientific manner that hearing aids belong in ears, not on floors. I think I heard correctly.
I hold what probably is a world’s record for hearing aids misplaced and found. Cats and dogs sometimes get back home after months away, and so do hearing aids.
We rode with friends to an outing that included a noisy dinner and I remember removing the aid thing from my right ear.
On the way home I lamented losing the little fellow. I could hear well from my left side (some friends say that I always hear political stuff from the left anyway) but I longed for the right-ear mate. This went on for eight months, and I had adjusted my hearing. But finally, on the way to church I announced: “This is the end. Tomorrow I get a replacement.”
At the church, waiting for me, wearing a big grin, was my friend who had driven to the party: “Look what I found, under the car seat.” He had a little pouch with my hearing aid in it. I felt like kissing his ring and saying a tearful thanks, but I said, “Why don’t you clean out your car more often?” He looked hurt, but he knew I was kidding. He thought I was, anyway.
The moral is simple: There is a time for wearing your hearing aids and a time to put them away safely. Do not walk on them.
Mrs. V doesn’t wear hers much, and I have heard (when I had my aids in place) her complain that batteries are so expensive. She probably does not want to hear me complain about that logic, so I may just leave a note under the bed. It will turn up some time, maybe.
