On Point

Say ‘what?’

By: Linda McCarthy
   I consider myself an expert on selective hearing. I personally don’t suffer from the affliction; I hear everything whether I want to or not. But for the males in my life, it’s reached epidemic proportions. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, selective hearing simply means you hear what you want and/or you interpret what you hear in a way that suits you.
   It may seem confusing to the novice, but let me explain. It all started the day after I said, "I do." Although the change was gradual, my husband morphed from attentive fiancée to the husband of a hundred "whats." I could be two feet away from him, and it makes no difference. "What?" is the standard response to everything I say.
   At first I thought he was trying to kill me. I’m asthmatic and every breath counts. According to my calculations, I could live to the ripe old age of 172 if I didn’t have to repeat myself.
   Every time we go to the movies it’s like we’re at a foreign film without subtitles. I have to interpret the entire script. This is bad enough, but, despite the close proximity, I’m forced to speak in much more than a whisper. At the request of theater management we’ve become permanent video renters.
   My boys are no better, especially if they’re watching TV. (By the way, neighbors two blocks over have asked us several times to turn the volume down.) I could be screaming, "My hair is on fire!" and unless there was a commercial for feminine products on the screen, I’d have to stop, drop and roll myself.
   In the interest of maintaining sanity I’ve developed a visual system. Before I begin to speak, I hold up a colored card to signal the required level of attention. White means, "If you don’t catch this, I’m not repeating it." I usually use this one when I’m telling my husband I took money out of his wallet. Blue means, "This could be important; you may want to at least try to hear it." This one is used for things like a dent in the car. Red means, "Turn up the hearing aide I gave you for Valentine’s Day; there’s an emergency situation." This is reserved for big things like, "I’m running away with the mailman."
   I’ve realized the problem doesn’t just affect the men in my life. Most males have the same difficulty. I was at the store the other day in an aisle with a woman and her husband. She was at one end, he was in the middle, and I was down at the other end. She was telling him what to grab off the shelf, and after each item he would ask, "What?" He was much closer to her than I was, yet I could hear everything she said.
   Then it hit me. It’s that nasty little Y chromosome at work again. She was saying, "corn," but he was processing "pork rinds," and since we weren’t in the junk food aisle, he was confused.
   Even the dog suffers from selective hearing. I can call him until I’m blue in the face, and he snores right over my pleas. But I can leave him behind a closed door, sneak down two flights of stairs and quietly open the refrigerator, and he’s at my side faster than you can say, "What?"
Linda McCarthy resides in Robbinsville with her husband and three children.