Les Bonnes Choses

You may or may not recall the concern I had about a month ago regarding my impaired hearing. The problem remedied itself during the visit to Chicago, on the same magical day that our house sold and we found a kickass place to live. At the time, I complained how weeks had passed since leaving the doctor at the UWO walk-in befuddled, and I hadn't heard a thing (no pun intended) about the promised follow-up with an audiologist. An appointment was eventually made, and, even though my hearing was now back to normal (or, at least, what I remember as being normal), it was useful to get a baseline in case the problem ever cropped up again. Unless I misinterpreted the photocopy of my report, I passed with flying colours. As one ages, one's hearing begins to decline, so that frequencies one can hear in their youth, can no longer be heard later on in life. Some businesses had taken advantage of this and started blaring these frequencies over loudspeakers to dissuade mobs of teens from loitering. Today's youth being clever, it was soon realized that ringtones using these same frequencies would not be heard by most adults, and would be ideal for classroom shenanigans. I came across a website this evening where one can download tones at various frequencies to be used as ringtones. Each tone can be previewed, so it was interesting to test my hearing on the frequencies. I got as high as 17.7 KHz, well beyond what would be expected of someone my advanced age, though I could only hear the tone if I tilted my head just so. Tones in this range are what my tinnitus sounds like, so perhaps I don't have tinnitus after all; maybe I have just always lived around dog whistles. If this is some kind of superpower that I have, I must say, I sure have been ripped off. Super hearing must be just a step above the ability to make a pink dot appear at will. Exceptional hearing, of course, only gives fodder to my nasty uncle Dave, who cruelly teased me for having big ears all my life.