If you can’t say somethin’ twice, don’t say nothin’ at all.
That’s my latest motto, coined for us hearing-impaired. For everyone else, it’s a directive.
Language just magically gets clearer and understandable the second time someone says something. Maybe the speaker is turning up the volume and enunciating the words more clearly. Or not. Either way, it’s second-time charm. Yeah, I know. Get a hearing aid. But when half your junk mail is from purveyors of hearing aids (they apparently know everyone’s age), you resent being targeted. They’ve invaded your space. You’d rather spend your hard-earned savings for something else – like maybe a yacht. You imagine the sails flapping in the wind and the waves slapping against the hull – a situation where nobody can hear. Perfect.
Meanwhile, a cheap idea for the hard of hearing: Get a defunct hearing aid, the bigger the better, like maybe from Goodwill or your late uncle. Wear it. Everyone will assume you can’t hear and will automatically speak louder and more distinctly. Hopefully. I haven’t gotten one yet, but that’s the plan. I may get two.
Or you learn lipreading. Some prisoners acquire that skill to discern from a distance what the guards are saying. If ever they lock me up, I plan to learn. It’ll help me get along with my fellow-jailbirds: Leave her alone. She reads lips.
Here on the outside, the fake hearing aid approach seems easier.
In lieu of a highly visible device, a little piece of almost anything stuck in one ear canal might work, too. When someone speaks, a certain tilt of the head and raised eyebrows should enhance the effect and draw attention to the accoutrement.
You might have to ask the speaker to repeat something once or twice, but chances are they’d soon start speaking up.
Anecdote time. Someone told an old man he’d gotten hard of hearing. He protested: “I’m not hard of hearing. People have gone to mumblin’.”
I halfway agree. Incidentally, when did people start talking so fast? Let’s blame television. Before children began watching the tube from the cradle and thereby learning the so-called standard way to talk in this country, regional dialects and speech speeds and rhythms prevailed. People in the South did not typically string words together with any rapidity. Just sayin’.
Back to visible hearing aids. Why not add some eye-catching glitz? The flesh-colored ones are especially boring. Is anybody jazzing up those devices?
RESEARCH.
Sure enough, somebody is. Notably, the Finnish-American company DEAFMETAL (registered trademark) offers various classy embellishments – some with safety chains that attach the hearing aid to an earring. Clever.
For youngsters, they make bold hearing aid add-ons, featuring everything from baseballs to butterflies. Good for them.
That’s the trouble with good ideas. It’s hard to be first on the scene. On the other hand, maybe I really am the first to suggest wearing a fake one. Or not.
Either way, I may add some turquoise to my prototype. Fake turquoise.
You heard it first, right here. A former reporter for The Childress Index, Hanaba Munn Welch was inspired to name her column for historic Engine 501 and to sum up her weekly thoughts in exactly 501 words and dashes. Farm life often inspires her writing. Sometimes, she even writes about trains.
WELCH
