I was in a bit of a flap last Friday.
A couple of months or so back, I became the proud owner of a pair of hearing aids. Grey ones to match my hair. The world is now a much noisier place than I remember. Mostly the experience has been good but sometimes it is nice to be able to push the mute button.
Friday was hearing-aid check-up day. My ears were working overtime as I headed into the medical centre – but not from noise this time. Hanging off my ears were glasses plus hearing aids plus a mask. I eased the ear-load a bit by sticking the glasses in my pocket.
Face masks did a great job in reducing the spread of Covid but, that afternoon I was about to discover, they can also introduce a potentially expensive element of risk.
As I left the medical centre I started to remove the mask from my left hear. My right ear flapped. The mask came off. Like a catapult it propelled my hearing aid metres ahead - onto a garden covered in grey-coloured wood-chip. About ten square metres of it. You couldn’t have a better form of camouflage.
Panic set in. The cavalry was called and, fortunately, sharper eyes than mine managed to find the elusive aid.
The panic abated but I can't say that peace returned. Everything seems so loud now.
Consider yourself lucky Doug.
Consider yourself lucky Doug. A friend of ours in Melbourne decided to fork out on tiny, round, extra discrete, hearing aids that fit right inside the ear canal. Very expensive. Even more so when he left them in a bowl which he later filled with peanuts. Crunch! Talk about spitting (micro) chips.