Historical June–August 2000 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Once again I’ve been confronted with still another symptom of my advancing age.
I now sport a hearing aid, the Sebring model 760.
The journey started simply enough.
There we were, having a breakfast in the living room by the raging fire: me, the first wife, and the third set of dogs.
The wonderful aroma of fresh coffee, cinnamon toast, and oak burning in the fireplace made the morning something special. KWMU was on and Cokie Roberts was explaining why George W. is so popular: “It’s his parents,” she said, clearing up that mystery.
She went on to talk about Al Gore, but I couldn’t tell whether she was saying “goody two-shoes,” “too wooden to lose.” or maybe it was “couldn’t do booze.” Possibly “Shouldn’t smooze”?
I leaned over to turn up the radio, a familiar ritual, while the smoke grew more poignant and a bit thicker.
I began to cough. Suddenly the wife shouted, scaring the dogs and .knocking her coffee on the oriental rug. (That’s what’s good about oriental rugs: you can’t see the stains.) “Did you open the flue?” she yelled.
I sorta heard her. “No,” I replied, ever so gently, “I don’t think I have the flu, it’s just that the smoke is getting pretty dense in here.” “DID YOU OPEN THE FLUE?” she repeated (at least so she’s told me).
I do know that she was raising her voice because Coco and Boomer began to bark. They’re great decibel dogs; whenever her volume gets above a certain level, they bark and I know that I need to begin to pay attention. “YOU IDIOT,” she now screamed, but still with affection, “did you open the flue in the chimney?” “Huh? Flu and cinnamon? That doesn’t make any sense,” I replied rather indigently, coughing louder which, of course, made it harder to hear.
The dogs began to howl.
The first wife then, as she does often, seized the moment, rolled her eyes, got up, and opened the closed flue herself.
The room began to clear a bit and I could begin to make out her face. “Which one of us has a hearing problem?” she asked triumphantly. Reality hit home.
I knew it wasn’t the dogs.
After spending years of responding to every sentence with “What?” just out of habit, I decided that I needed to bite the bullet and do something about my Rock & Roll hearinginduced loss.
After all, I wear eyeglasses and have a toupee (which you probably didn’t know because it is designed to make me look as if I’m losing my hair so that it doesn’t seem obvious), so why not a hearing aid? I’m not proud; look at my ties!
It turns out that our friendly Walgreen’s has a hearing aid department and, get this, you can see someone without an appointment. Such a deal! So there I was a few weeks ago, strolling in to meet the audiologist, Dr. Quackenbusch. a dead-ringer for Anthony Quinn. Given my high level of people skills and my acute ability to bond with anyone, knowing that I wanted him to do the best job possible, I began the conversation with “Is that your real name?” “Of course it is,” Dr. Quackenbush replied a bit huffily, I thought.
The pleasantries over, the doc and I quickly got down to business.
He had me put these itsy-bitsy earphones in my ears and then I nodded when I could hear sounds.
I loved the competitive aspect of the exercise.
After all, I’ve always rallied for tests.
I tried to tell how I was doing, whether I was passing or not, but Dr. Q was stoic. He’d simply nod, make a checkmark on his table, adjust the knob, and look at me again. Truthfully, it didn’t take me long to figure out that this is an easy game to win. Regardless of whether or not I could hear a sound, I simply nodded yes when the doc turned the knob and looked questioningly at me. “Gotcha,” I thought. (It reminded me a bit of taking the eye test for my driver’s licence at AAA.
I simply memorized the letters on the eye chart using both eyes, then recounted them from memory when I had to close either eye.) After a few minutes the good doctor looked up. “Yes,” he said, “you have a mild hearing loss.” “Wild dental floss?” I asked, “What in the world does that have to do with hearing?” Dr. Q was startled and then he smiled, “Ah, you Americans, always playing tricks.” With that he wrote something on a piece of paper and pointed to the EAR CENTER, located in the drug aisle between the GARDEN CENTER and SLEEP CENTER. Ever the obedient one, I went there and handed the paper to the audiotechnician.
I knew that is what she was because it said so on her name tag.
She smiled and asked me to take a seat. “Make a sheet?” I asked.
She leaned forward and exchanged a look with Dr. Q.
I could see him mouth “crazy Americans” and laugh.
She smiled at him, nodded at me, and pointed to a chair.
It wasn’t but a few minutes until she handed me a small box with Sebring 760 written in red letters, over a photo of a trim guy and binki-ed gal playing in the waves. Inside there was a madras teensy-tiny hearing aid.
I put it in, twisted the even teensier and tinier volume knob up to 5, as high as it would go, and wonders upon wonders, sounds became alive!
I could hear.
All of a sudden I could hear the background noise in the store: kids asking their moms for toys, moms refusing and threatening, babies crying, customers being rude to cashiers, packages being dropped, elevator muzak playing in the background, and electric Santas ho-ho-hoing. Wow, this is easy, I thought, thank goodness for the Sebring 760.
I turned the knob down to 1 and left the store.
All of a sudden I was at peace again.
I can’t wait to talk politics with the first wife.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, June–August 2000.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2000_06.pdf, printed page(s) 12; PDF page(s) 12.
