SCENARIO ONE:
My sense of hearing, not so good, has recently taken a severe turn for the worse. It could not have happened at a lousier time.
Trying to visit my ear doctor in a time of plague and economic collapse is as difficult as trying to visit my financial planner. Blame COVID-19 for doctors being unemployed, just like waiters and baseball players, while hedge fund managers laugh it up in the Bahamas.
Anyway, I can no longer hear a door slam, a beer bottle break or the clickity sounds of my own shoes when I tap dance on the sidewalk.
SCENARIO TWO:
My sense of hearing, not so good, has recently taken a severe turn for the worse. It could not have happened at a better time.
I’ve got no job so there’s no need to bluff my way through meetings or conversations, and as a lifetime practitioner of social-distancing I welcome excuses to not stop and talk. A wave and elbow-bump is the new gold standard.
My hearing loss started with an ear infection back in December. How do you know if you have an ear infection? If you suddenly experience screaming electric jolts that snap your head backward as your knees twitch, congratulations. You are the proud owner of an ear infection.
Maybe in the past you’ve described excruciating pain by comparing it to toothaches or lower back spasms, but it’s time to add “earaches” to your list. They’re wild. You haven’t had an earache since you were a kid so you’ve missed out on a lot of moaning and weeping.
My hearing has been poor for decades. I’ve had tinnitus in both ears for as long as I can remember. A lot of people have tinnitus. It’s the nonstop background noise that plagues us to the point we forget it’s there but the audio clouds and high-pitch whining accompany us wherever we go.
And ear infections do tinnitus no favors. To the contrary. At least the thick, dull radiating glob of earache pain makes me forget any other problems, and when it strikes all I have to do is press my hands to the sides of my head and bark.
As far as hearing, I may as well have a mattress strapped around my head. Conversations? I could be talking to a mannequin from JC Penney’s.
QUESTION: My skull feels like there’s a welding class going on inside. If I stood at the corner of Smith and State Streets and the Palace Hotel fell over I wouldn’t hear it. What should I do?
ANSWER: Your best option is to fire a pistol in one ear and out the other.
(Ask your doctor if shooting yourself in the head is right for you. Side effects may include headaches, blackouts and external bleeding. Clinical trials suggest administering .38 caliber bullets to the head can result in suicidal thoughts, loss of appetite and cancellation of life insurance policies.)
Think of an earache as a high voltage electrical panel wedged between your ear and brain. The panel randomly fires hot lightning jolts. On the standard pain scale these blasts are listed in the “Stunning” category. Screaming shards run from the bones of the lower jaw up through eye sockets, and though it does not impair vision you won’t know it because your wincing, watering eyes will be shut tight.
At the other end of the pain scale we have “Bruising” and this is where the fat greenish-purple tumor does its work. It’s a low, malignant, fist-sized muscle of throbbing, deep humming pain that perfectly complements those thrilling bolts stabbing your face bones. Often the Pain Brothers operate alone, other times they attack simultaneously. You haven’t got a chance.
There’s a risk of isolating oneself due to loss of hearing but it’s a problem for other people. I average one phone call a month and half a visitor a year. If someone knocked on the front door I wouldn’t hear it and if the dog barked I wouldn’t hear that either. And I’ll just quit paying the phone bill.
I suppose there are pluses. I’m no longer awakened by garbage trucks at 5 o’clock Tuesday mornings, I haven’t heard Nancy Pelosi’s sweet voice in six weeks, and I am now able to listen to myself chew potato chips, fresh ones anyway.
But there are even more minuses. I can’t hear the cheery song of the morning Mockingbird nor any other birdies, and when Jennifer Aniston finally gets around to returning my calls I’ll have already had the phone disconnected. I’ve not heard an A’s game on Radio KUKI since last October.
A .38 caliber bullet might not be enough. I’ll ask the doc to prescribe me a .45, or else a noose.
Tom Hine says give The Who complete credit for today’s headline and partial blame for his loss of hearing. TWK wonders if we can get one of those cool disabled stickers for free parking.
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