Two Bits – There’s more technology in a hearing aid than in the first moon rocket

When I was 12 or so, I did a really stupid thing. I took a blank rifle cartridge that my eldest brother had brought back from the army, clamped it in a vice, then hit the detonator with a nail and hammer.

I had wanted to see what would happen. Well, it exploded, stupid! The bang from a distance of half a metre was very loud and, more dangerously, a strip of the casing flew backwards – I didn’t know it could do that – and buried itself in my cheek, where it remains today.

Another inch and it could have been my eye! I bled like a stuck pig but managed to staunch the flow and told my parents I’d been snagged by a barbed wire fence. The lie was to avoid the thrashing I would have got from my father if he’d found out.

As worrying was that the ringing in my ears didn’t go away. Ever.

The long-term effect of the bang was that I instantly gained what is politely called ‘tinnitus’, but really is a bloody nuisance. It does sometimes get softer, but most of the time it is like standing next to a tree full of Christmas beetles in full swing.

Anyhow, whether as a result of that boyhood prank or just natural ageing, since about 10 years ago I have gradually become deafer. I noticed that I could not pick up some words in conversation and was asking people to repeat themselves. My job takes me to a lot of social gatherings.

They are just impossible! Sometimes I cannot make out the words of someone standing right next to me!

When you’re at a party and the person you’re talking to nods and smiles a lot, and says Yes and No – occasionally at the wrong times – you know this person is asking themselves “What on earth is he/she saying now?” (This is your cue to speak slower, clearer and louder!)

We never think we’re going to get old, do we! In our minds we’re years younger, but our bodies let us down in little ways. Mind you, deafness can happen to anybody at any age. My nephew has two childrem, both completely deaf, who have been saved from difficult lives by cochlear implants. Luckily they live in Denmark, where the state foots the bill.

I went off to an audiologist about six years ago and got fitted with a set of hearing aids that cost the earth. But they didn’t really do the trick. Yes, I could hear better sometimes, but it wasn’t like flicking a switch and hey presto!, my hearing was set back to age 11. No, not near that. They were also not completely comfortable in the ear and hurt after a long day.

Recently I was loaned a pair of the newest hearing aids and, my, are they different! There’s been a lot of development in this field over six years. Not surprising really, they’re little computers.

There’s probably more processing power in them than there was in the first spaceship to the moon.

They’re light, comfortable (well, as comfortable as it can be with a computer in your earhole), with tiny, flexible plastic cups inside the ear instead of a shaped plug but, unfortunately, still very expensive. A big plus is that they connect directly with your iPhone through Bluetooth, making cell calls a pleasure.

I thought I’d pass on my experiences in this international deaf month, to say a few things: firstly, that people who are deaf can’t help it, second, that people can help them by just speaking clearly and slightly louder (not shouting) and third, there is no need to suffer in silence if you are hard of hearing. There’s plenty you can do about it.
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Last week I had a little rant about people making spelling mistakes in their job applications, then made a right blooper myself. I checked a re-checked an article about stationers who sell “stationary” and are relocating their shop.

A staff member checked it, then I checked it, and neither of us picked up the mistake. Which prompted several members of Ballito spelling police to pounce and say well, it was obvious the shop wasn’t moving because it was ‘stationary’!

Joke’s on me, hoist with my own petard and all that, though on the bright side a lot of people now know the stationer is relocating!
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Peter Matkovich tells an amusing tale about the night he and fellow pro golfer Simon Hobday were thrown out of the Royal Hotel in Durbs because Simon wasn’t wearing a tie.

“So Hobday says ‘Fine,’ and goes and gets a tie. He then walks past the receptionist who says ‘Oh, that’s alright now, Mr Hobday,’ but only when he got to the door of the restaurant she saw that he wasn’t wearing any trousers.

Apart from the shirt and tie, he was stark naked!”
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82-year-old Morris went to the doctor for a physical checkup.

A few days later, the doctor saw Morris walking down the street with a gorgeous young woman on his arm.

The doctor says to Morris, “You’re really doing great, aren’t you?”

Morris replied, “Just doing what you said, Doc: ‘Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.’ ”

The doctor said, “I didn’t say that. I said, ‘You’ve got a heart murmur; be careful.’ ”

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