Muffle-Men

I woke up this morning with that familiar numb, muffle-y feeling down deep in my ears: a sign that I’ve stressed my hearing to the max. I probably should explain, in case you’re unfamiliar with this phenomenon.

Little muffle-men are my accountability partners when I’ve strained to hear for long periods of time in the midst of ongoing noise. Not unlike the Bashful-Doc-Grumpy-Sneezy-Dopey-Happy-Sleepy dwarfs in the story of Snow White, they’re more than a little eccentric…they’re just plain nerdy.

But by working together, they’re able to control my auditory breaker switches, which is an important job. When things get really noisy, and I’m straining like crazy to hear over my tinnitus noises, it’s not unusual for them to start grumbling: “Alright already, we’re doing all we can to regulate all this…what’s her deal, anyway…you can’t get blood out of a turnip.”

Of course they’re not REALLY talking about blood OR turnips, let alone both (ewww…gross combination). They’re REALLY referring to their impatience with my attitude, and the fact that I magnify external sounds with hearing aids and then can be bummed that the resulting cacophony of tinnitus-plus-magnified-everything-else seems unreasonable. Well, here’s the truth. It isn’t reasonable. Especially when there’s lots of sounds/noises going on all the time.

“Hey muffle-guys, you know I have only so much tolerance in a given day. So if you need to muffle me as a reminder to find some quiet, then get on the stick.” This is in reference to our mutually agreed upon point system. In a given hour, the lawnmower might use up about 20 points. Spoken conversation might use up 30. Crying babies claim special pointage (I know, I know – pointage isn’t a word, but I like it): 50.

If the maximum allowed by my brain before the muffle-guys kick into gear is set at 100, then any other additional noise pushes them into work mode. So the workers banging on the roof (for example) or the dog barking (for another example) or little kids’ chirpy-bleep-bleep voices (the supreme example) will sound the alarm and rustle them out of bed. They reluctantly throw on their overalls and grab their earmuffs and get to work.

Right now they’re complaining because of long workdays. “What’s with this? Why do we have to work so much recently, without any extra pay?” Our agreement is contractual, but evidently they’d prefer an hourly wage.

“Back off and just do your job,” I say. “Life isn’t fair. Get over it.” They’re grumblers by nature, but in reality they get plenty of vacation time in any given year. It’s just that today, and probably for the rest of the summer, they’re going to see a lot of overtime.