The alarm clock blared at seven o’clock this morning, but I didn’t hear it. My pillow muffled the sound. Turns out, I had rolled on the side with my “good” ear. The one that hears better than the other. The one that hears the alarm clock. The one that lay pressed into the pillow.
I slept through the alarm at 7:00, 7:15, and 7:30. When I woke up, it wasn’t to the shrill beeping clock or the radio dial cranked to full volume, but to the whine of my sweet little girl.
“Mommy,” she cried, “you overslept again.”
I wanted to blame it on the pillow, which had kept my good ear from hearing a blaring alarm clock. But I didn’t.
Crazy ears.
I breathed cool air into my steaming cup of coffee while fiddling with one of my hearing aids in the other hand. I put the listening device in my ear and switched it on. Nothing. Dead silence.
Out came the expensive contraption that looked like a sea shell with wires in it. The wires that were supposed to help me hear better. Could it have been a dead battery? Or worse, a hearing aid clogged with a blob of my ear wax? The most disgusting part of the morning was scooping wax out of this ear shell. After adding the fresh battery and scooping out ear boogers, I put the hearing aid back on. Nothing. Dead silence.
“What’s wrong with you?” I shouted at the expensive device. I threatened to throw it on the floor and stomp it into a mess of wires and ear shell plastic. But I didn’t.
Crazy ears.
The coffee spilled between my pant legs as I drove the kiddos to school. My sweet girl chatted on and on about so-and-so in her class and this-and-that at school. I nodded and smiled, marveling at every word she spoke. (I didn’t have a clue what she said.)
The car A/C blasted, the wipers squeaked against the pitter-pattering of rain on the windshield, and my baby son screamed in harmony with a Taylor Swift song on the radio. Plus, my hearing aid still didn’t work.
Stupid hearing aid.
I wanted to announce at the top of my lungs how much I loathed that hearing aid, to yell so loud, it would be heard over A/Cs, windshields, kids, and whiny teeny bopper music. But I didn’t. I just decided I was having a Bad Hear Day.
Trying to make light of the situation, I interrupted my sweet girl to tell her a knock-knock joke.
“Knock knock,” I said.
“Who’s there?” she asked with a smile.
“”Huh?” I said.
“’Huh’ who?” she answered, sweetly.
I squinted at her through the rearview mirror. “Huh? What did you just say?”
Oh, crazy ears…
Lipreading Mom 
Great story, Shanna! You’ll be amazed at how much your kids will save the day for you from time to time. They are our most precious “hearing aids.”
Thanks, R85. And yes…children are the most precious resource we lipreading parents have.
Oh, I hate the days when the hearing aids decide to fritz on me. My old set were possessed by mischievous fairies, and they would do fun things like cycle on their own through the programs, or turn off and on randomly. Some days, they’d refuse to work at all. Very distracting. Sometimes I’m amused by the fact that there is this whole other world going on inside my ears that other people are completely unaware of.
I haven’t gotten one of the fancy alarms, but I do use the vibrating alarm on my phone to wake me up. Have you tried that? I keep my phone on my bed, plugged in, but near me. It is usually enough to wake me up, but I’m also really sensitive to light and vibrations. (Honestly, my usual alarm clock is my 4 year old, but on days when I *really* need to be up at and going at a certain time, I use my phone. You can always bet that is the one day he’ll sleep in.)
Here’s hoping your hearing aid fairy gives you a break, and it starts working again.
So glad you can emphathize, Indi. 🙂
I follow my 9yr old around every morning reminding her to eat, put on shoes, brush her hair and teeth, get her jacket, etc. . It drives me crazy that she just sits and waits until I tell her what to do. I’ve gotten up and told her she’s on her own but she justs sits until I can’t take it anymore.
Then one morning I wake up and it’s really bright. I look to my sonic boom alarm clock and it’s blank. UNPLUGGED! I leap up out of bed and run for the nearest clock. It’s 5 min past time to leave for school. Coming up the stairs is my dressed, combed, shoe wearing, bagel eating 9 year old. My alarm woke her so she unplugged it, got herself ready, and was coming to get me up to drive her. I was stunned, proud, and annoyed all at the same time. She is going to be the death of me. LOL
PS- I don’t put up with the stare into space until you direct me anymore. 🙂 Also you know you have a hearing problem when an alarm clock that wakes your neighbor fails to wake you up.
Did you figure out what was wrong with the hearing aid? I once had a whole brand new pack of dead batteries.
Hi Eve – It was earwax buildup in the ear mold and tube. Not a very fun thing to have to clean, huh?
When my hearing aid would die (and this is gross) there was alot of wax build up in the tubes.
Me too, Kym. 😉
Thanks for sharing your life, Shanna – no matter how frustrating it is !
Thank you for the sweet note, RJ!
Thanks for a great story. I would also like to say that, like Indi, I use my cell phone to wake me up. I put it inside the pillow case and under the pillow so it won’t fall out during the night. The vibration wake me up. It vibrates right through the pillow. I use it more that way more than for a phone.
Love the term “bad hear day.” I’ll have to try and come up with a similar term for endo. Bad hear day is much cuter than just bad day. 🙂
Thanks, Rachel. We have to find the positive here, right?
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