Hearing Challenged Jokes
Three old guys are out walking.
First one says, 'Windy, isn't it?'
Second one says, 'No, it's Thursday!'
Third one says, 'So am I. Let's go get a beer..'
A man was telling his neighbour, 'I just bought a new hearing aid. It cost me four thousand dollars, but it's state of the art.. It's perfect.'
'Really,' answered the neighbour . 'What kind is it?'
'Twelve thirty..’
I’m deaf. OK, I’m not fully deaf, but one ear doesn’t work at all and the good one is showing its age. Still, I resent being treated as someone who is intellectually challenged. (I don’t know what the current euphemisms are, but I think if I stick a “good” or neutral word like "intellectually" in there and follow it with “challenged” I’ll be fairly safe — for now.) What I want to say, politically correctly or not is that “deaf as a post” does not mean “thick as a post.” I have an auditory, not a cognitive challenge, although in my case the distinction may not always be evident.
Let me summarize for you non-challenged listeners, some of the problems that beset my kind. First off, everything interferes with sound transmission. Everything. The obvious ones would be the electric toothbrush you’re using and the complications of having it in your mouth while speaking, but even if I’m using it while you’re telling me about the furniture sale at The Bay I won't get the message. Even if you're ordering some of that furniture I won't hear you. Electric toothbrushes are noisy.
Likewise, if you really want to explain your annoyance with my having left tissues in the pocket of the pants you're retrieving from the dryer, it would be best to take your head out of the dryer first. Then there’s the music playing, the running water from the tap you may just have turned on, the toilet you just flushed, or even the crunching of that carrot stick in your mouth; they all put up a comprehension barrier to block any meaning getting through.
And if you’re busy tying your shoelaces while speaking about the sales flyer, don’t expect my attention. Even if I know you’re actually talking, I’m going to assume it’s just conversational grease and mutter affirmatives. As a matter of fact, any time at all that you’re not looking me straight in the face I’ll probably miss most of your meaning, and most times I’m trying hard to get it.
I even took a course in speech reading — what we used to call “lip reading” until someone decided that it was more accurate to rename it. But these pandemic years mean we’re all wearing masks. Nice work, coronavirus. Did the sales clerk just ask “ Hey, you hot-looking dude, whatcha doing tonight?” or “Do you want a bag for these things?” You can see the problem — the interpretation I mean, not my social skills. The one significant aspect of that speech reading course was that no buxom female ever again had to remind me that, “Hey, Buddy, I’m up here!”
Restaurants have their own set of problems for we who are hearing impaired, and they start before we even get seated. That means choosing a quiet restaurant, or at least a booth in a restaurant far from the madding crowd and the clanging pots of the kitchen staff. I know I’m going to be able to talk with friends immediately across the table and on my “good” side and so I have to speak up and state seating preference right off. My preference starts with a friendly interpreter on that “good” side and that usually is my wife, although some electronic gadgets can help to get conversations to my ears.
A handy little invention of late has been the microphone link to my hearing aids. It works great for telephone conversations and in quiet settings. In noisy environments of course, it amplifies all that noise and is worse than useless. I only have one good ear and I don’t want it blasted with someone’s favourite soundtrack. When B is wearing that little microphone and I have it synched to my hearing aids, we are in full communication. Of course I have to remind her occasionally that she might want to turn the thing off when she visits the toilet. There is such a thing as too much information.
People do want to help, and that’s mostly a good thing. I say “mostly” because I have noticed an escalation of responses that people have when trying to be understood in a less-than-optimal situation such as on a busy street next to a crew with jackhammers.
The order of responses goes something like this:
(a) increase volume
(b) e-nun-ci-ate each part of each word
(c) simplify the message content
(d) move closer
(e) look full in my face at 12” distance
(f) Do all of (a) to (e) at same time
The final response produces a shouted observation in baby-talk delivered inches from my face. Not good.
There will always be hearing errors for all of us that are often the result of one- word miscue which then colours the rest of a message. Even fully hearing folks have the experience of misinterpreting communications at times. For instance, if one hears “Freeze” instead of “Please” at the start of “Please pass the onions,” it is easy for the message to become: “Freeze gas the bunions” which may be a suitable treatment for foot ailments but won’t get the vegetable dish to the person requesting it. I myself often mis-hear "Want a drink?" for "Whatcha think?"
And of course, anyone who has used Siri to compose an email or message knows this problem intimately, as sometimes the results are far more intimate than you would ever have wished for. Siri knows all the naughty words, it seems, and is never too modest to use them.
The solution that I and so many others in my situation descend to is not really very effective, albeit common in hearing-able and unable alike. We fake it. It was illustrated for me recently as we waited at a stop light and watched a little kid & Dad walking across the crosswalk in front of us. The kid was chatting away, probably earnestly explaining the nature of bugs but at a long arm’s length. Dad kept nodding and watching traffic. It’s the same with spouses reading flyers after a while whether we're deaf or not. And then we wonder how come these people are delivering all this new furniture.