Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
My hearing is going to shit and I’m approaching 60, which is not a coincidence so much as it is the universe presenting its invoice.
Just the left ear, to be clear. The right ear is an absolute champion. A titan. The right ear could pick up a whispered conversation between two moths in a pillow factory. It is doing the Lord’s work with a full staff and adequate funding. The left ear, by contrast, has unionized, filed a grievance, and is currently on an indefinite work-to-rule protest in which it technically shows up but refuses to produce anything meaningful. It is the DMV of ears.
The left ear has tinnitus. There is a sound in there, a high-pitched, persistent, faintly accusatory ringing that has been my constant companion for several years now, like a roommate who never pays rent and won’t stop playing the same note on a tiny invisible violin. I believe Tinnitus was actually a Roman god. God of regret, most likely. Patron deity of aging men who spent their twenties standing directly in front of a Marshall stack the size of Cleveland and thinking, yes, this is fine, this is how sound works, this is culture.
Totally Bitchin’, Dude. Worth It. No Notes.
And it was culture. Magnificent, skull-loosening, eardrum-reorganizing culture.
I was there for all of it, the sweat, the horns, the riffs that rearranged your internal organs into a slightly different configuration. Totally bitchin’ dude. I would do every bit of it again, and I would bring earplugs to none of it, because I was young and invincible and also, frankly, I was hoping one of those concerts would get me laid, and showing up with foam cylinders jammed in your ears sends a very specific message about your priorities that is not universally attractive.
But here we are.
I had it checked out by an earologist. Ear person. Ear… look, there’s a word for this, and I don’t know it, and neither does my left ear, which is part of the problem. The doctor peered into my ear canal with a little light and declared it perfect. Pristine. Structurally immaculate. She seemed genuinely pleased, the way a home inspector seems pleased when they tell you the foundation is fine right before they open the basement door and something wet and unhappy is in there.
With a smile, she said that the canal looks great. She said this with the same energy as a mechanic saying, “Your tires look great,” while holding a clipboard and not making eye contact.
Great canal.
Shame about everything behind it.
I have not personally verified the canal’s perfection, because I cannot turn my own head around to look inside my own skull.
Yet.
I’m a go-getter. I have a plan. I’m in the early stages of developing a series of articulated mirrors and a can-do attitude, and I fully expect to be peering into my own auditory canal by sometime next fiscal year. Watch this space.
The Panic Room, the Headphones, and the Absence of Jodie Foster
The real diagnosis came during my hearing test, which was conducted inside a soundproofed booth, essentially a Panic Room, though without Jodie Foster, which was both a professional disappointment and a logistical relief because I would have had a lot of questions and the appointment was only forty-five minutes.
They sat me in the booth. They gave me headphones. A technician stood behind a thick pane of glass and spoke words and phrases into a microphone, and I was meant to repeat each word back to demonstrate that my brain was correctly receiving and processing human language. This is also the basic format of several federal parole hearings, but with worse lighting.
With the right ear? Flawless. Immaculate. Every phrase, clear as a bell being rung directly into my soul.
“Ball.”
“Calligraphy.”
“Lisa Whelchell should absolutely be cast in the Blair Witch Project: Part Trois, but I have thoughts about the cinematography.”
Every single one, I nailed it. I was an audio prodigy. I was Rain Man but for phonics. Briefly, I considered a second career.
Then we tested the left ear.
They told me to repeat what I heard, and what I heard, apparently, was the audio equivalent of a fax machine trying to recite poetry.
I said “Blargh.”
I said “Bloof.”
Then, I said “Bangadiddy,” which is not a word in any language but felt deeply correct in the moment.
At one point, I said something that made the technician put down her clipboard.
She came into the booth.
She said, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I told her she was on the clock and I didn’t think we had that kind of time.
Mah Mwah Hwa Wanga: A Social Strategy
In bars or loud restaurants, which given my decade of saturating myself in live metal, now basically describes anywhere that isn’t a monastery, when a stranger tries to talk to me I hear “Mah mwah mah mwah hwa wanga.” I nod. I say “Fwada dee fwa hada he doo.” They laugh. I laugh. It works surprisingly well as a social strategy. I once bedded Marlee Matlin this way.
What is actually happening, neurologically, is that sound enters my left ear without incident. The canal receives it warmly, gives it a little nod, passes it along. But somewhere between the eardrum and the language-processing parts of my brain, the signal passes through a translator who is very old, extremely drunk, possibly having a small stroke, and absolutely not going to let any of that stop him from giving it a shot.
My wife, Dr. Karie, as she is now fully entitled to be called, having just completed her PhD in Education, spent years learning to communicate complex ideas with precision and clarity to large groups of people.
I now have what I can only describe as hearing-deficient domestic exchanges that belong in a Samuel Beckett play if Samuel Beckett had a pig.
The Condor, the Bishop, and the Goat Economy
Last Tuesday, from the laundry room:
She said: “Remind me to check on the clothes in the washing machine before we go to bed.”
I heard: “The condor has moistened the bishop. Gdansk is not an option.”
It escalates.
A few nights later:
She said: “Vinny keeps getting on the counter and I’m worried he’s going to knock something over.”
I heard: “Winnie’s feelings about the brisket are legally protected at this time.”
Thursday, she looked right at me:
She said: “I have a conference call tomorrow, don’t run the garbage disposal while I’m on it.”
I heard: “The fog tribunal has your pancreas on the docket. The goat economy remains.”
Then very quietly, from the other room:
She said: “Mr. Pickles keeps scratching at the back door, can you let him out before he loses his mind.”
I heard: “The ottoman has a soft throat and the Belgians are aware of it.”
And…
And just last night, delivered with the flat calm of a meteorologist wrapping up the eleven o’clock forecast…
She said: “Scattered clouds through Thursday, low of forty-two, fifty percent chance of rain moving in from the west.”
I heard: “The Epstein files name seventeen sitting senators, a former game show host, and someone’s uncle in Boca. Back to you.”
What the Fuck Did You Just Say
In fairness, Karie does not always hear perfectly either. The difference is that she has developed a highly effective and academically rigorous communication strategy for these moments. She turns, fixes me with the calm, focused expression of a woman who has earned a doctorate, and says “What the fuck did you just say?”
It is, honestly, the clearest thing I hear all day.
She is a Doctor. She communicates for a living. And somewhere between her mouth and my left ear the signal arrives perfectly intact, passes inspection, and is then handed off to the part of my brain responsible for language processing, which has apparently been doing improv since 1987 and is not taking notes.
Tinnitus just watches. He has been watching the whole time, ringing faintly, absolutely delighted and giggling. He is a big fan of the work of Garblus, minor Roman god of “Whatever the Brain Decided It Heard Instead,” patron deity of confident misinterpretation, whose tiny temple on the Aventine Hill was notoriously difficult to find because nobody could agree on where it was.
See my Amazon author page and buy my books.
His first manuscript was composed entirely of punctuation marks and confused sketches. He's since published "Not Bukowski" (poems that don't rhyme) and "Slop and Swell from a Festering Mind" (essays so concerning that bookstores check on his wellbeing). He once spent three hours photographing a rare bird that turned out to be a plastic bag, and he's the only person banned from church bake sales for "weaponized brownies." Inheriting absurdism from Vonnegut and Adams, sprawling narratives from Irving, and weaponized failure from Moore, he writes about conflicted everymen struggling through supernatural chaos.
He has two new, offbeat novels waiting foran agent or a publisher: "Truth Tastes Like Pennies" and "Elliot Nessie."
He remains unconvinced that birds aren't surveillance drones.
More biographic lies...err...info.
- Packing for Marrakech, Distracted by Fried Chicken Fashion - April 20, 2026
- I Am Not a Carwash Guy Either - April 17, 2026
- Scientists Confirm Sperm Whales Have Language. Gary is pleased. - April 16, 2026
