Eh?...Stop Mumbling!

Today the sun shines. After so many days of heavy rain, I don’t even complain about the heat. I am just glad to close my eyes and hold my face to the sun. I stay so busy, wondering in odd moments as I do household chores, how I ever found the time to work. My husband is glad to have me home. He’s unlike me. He likes having someone else around all the time. He has the dog and now, once again he has me. I’m not sure which of us he prefers. It really isn’t important that I know. Why should I inquire and hurt my own feelings if I don’t get the answer I want?

Today we had an “issue.” Husband is getting more and more deaf with each passing year. His deafness has it’s comical moments. Recently when we were camping, I was seated outside under the awning. Flies were bothering me. As husband was inside, I loudly asked,

 “Would you please bring me the fly swatter when you come out again?”

 “What?” he replied.  

“Would you please bring me the fly swatter when you come out again?” I stridently shrieked.

 “What?” he answered once again.

“The fly swatter, I need the fly swatter!”

“Oh, ok, just a tic. Be right out.”

He walked out the door of the trailer a few minutes later and handed me a glass of ice water.

“What’s this for?” I quizzically asked.

“It’s what you’ve been screeching about for the last five minutes, your glass of ice water! Don’t you want it now?”

That incident I can laugh about, but it gets worse and worse as husband’s hearing deteriorates. I guess the biggest issue is that he refuses to even admit he has a hearing problem. His loss of hearing is isolating us from each other. We have a huge great room where we watch television. He has the volume of the television so loud that in the last couple of years I’ve just retreated to the office and mess around on the computer. I can’t even watch the television in our bedroom because his volume in the great room trumps mine in the bedroom.  When I have to repeat things three and four times, it's frustrating.  When I have to do it all day long it's fatiguing.  When I try to discuss the problem with him, he says he's hearing is fine, I just don't speak properly.  I mumble.  When I point out that he doesn't often hear other people as well he says, "well, it's your damn American accents plus you all talk like you have marbles in your mouth."

Now to today’s issue…last night I was in the office and the phone rang. I heard husband pick up the great room extension and say, “Yes, fine, that’s fine I’ll call the gate.” I went in and asked what the call was about. “Oh, the window cleaners you called will be here tomorrow at eleven.” Hmmmm I thought. “They weren’t supposed to come until Oct. 1^st” I said. “Well, that’s Monday so maybe they decided to come early” I added. I got up early and got the house ready for window cleaners, moving things, dusting wooden blinds etc.. Eleven o’clock came and went. So did twelve and one and two o’clock…no window cleaners. I called their office at 2PM. The secretary informed me that we were scheduled for Monday, October 1^st at 11AM and that she personally had confirmed it with my husband yesterday. I’m sure she did. But, as husband will not admit that he has a problem, he just guesses at what people are saying from the bits of language he catches.

I feel sorry for husband that he is going deaf. I feel sorry for me that he is going deaf. Maybe I’m asking too much to think he should admit he’s going deaf. When I tell him he’s going deaf and what a problem it’s becoming he gets defensive and says, “Well, I have the best hearing on my tennis team. You should see So-and-So and So-and-So, I have hearing like a German Shepherd compared to them!” 

 I feel sorry for So-and-Sos’ wives, too…