Member-only story
Soundproof
Admit it, you can’t hear what I just said
For years, my sister chided me that I was missing half of what she said. But I had been trying to tune out my sister’s chidings for six decades, so I assumed my brain had fallen into the habit of selectively muting her.
Then my boyfriend told me to get my hearing checked. He appreciated that I allowed him to play his music louder than his previous girlfriends. But I didn’t seem to hear what he was saying unless he spoke to me face-to-face.
“That’s right!” I said. “You call me from the other room! Or talk when I have my back turned! If you would speak to me face-to-face, which is the polite thing to do, I would hear everything you said just fine.”
When I drove with my son, I grew so frustrated by my inability to make out what he said that I reached for the radio as if to turn up his volume. But everyone knew my son was a gentle soul who didn’t want to disturb the air with too many sound waves.
In fact, his entire generation spoke too softly! Students these days were so afraid of offending their classmates, they barely whispered. Thank goodness I was able to retire before the pandemic hit; if everyone’s mouths had been muffled by masks, I would have spent the entire semester asking them to repeat their comments.
