Thursday, July 23, 2009

Eh? Did you say something?

Men have an uncanny sense of selective hearing. If I mention a little hanky panky after dinner, I could whisper from the other side of the room and he would hear me. However, if it involves any sort of "honeydo" topic, I have to draw pictures, shout, and communicate with sign language, and still he may not hear me. He also has this half hearing thing where he cuts me off mid sentence as if he has telepathically sensed what I need for him to do and can now take care of my specific instructions without me ever needing to explain to him how to go about doing it. Of course, most of the time in this case, he comes back to me, midway through the project and gives me a helpless look before asking how to do it.

It drives me nuts sometimes. Okay fine, all the time. I repeat myself over and over. When he puts on his video gaming head set and starts yakking it up with his voice chat buddies, I seem to vanish along with any responsibility that he has in the house.

It doesn't stop here. Oh no. Much like my grandmother that suffers from hearing loss and refusal to wear her hearing aids, my husband has decided that the television must be set to never before heard decibel levels that the astronauts can hear some times. I tend to have rather sensitive hearing, probably because I spend most of my days surrounded by noisy children, so I try really hard to let it go, but seriously! I go outside to talk on the phone or just clear my head sometimes and I still can't drown his sound out completely. He swears it isn't loud, but our quaking walls beg to differ.

No wonder he can't hear me when I ask him to take out the trash!

2 comments:

  1. I have to say that I am quite blessed to have married a man who does more than his fair share of housework. (Of course, that's because he is a neatness fanatic, which has its own set of issues.)

    My husband totally has the selective hearing, though, when it comes to listening to anything that I am talking about that doesn't involve sex, sports, or food. He claims that he is genuinely losing his hearing and that I should give him sympathy. . . but he has no problem hearing any snide comment I make under my breath and refuses to go to the doctor for a hearing test, leading me to believe that a true hearing loss is NOT the problem. ;-)

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  2. I have to admit my husband does more housework than I do, that's because I'm "domestically challenged". He takes out the trash, dramatically bitching and moaning about how he's the only one who does. But he maintains the yard and even washes up on weekends! (and...I whisper this quietly... I'm usually the one playing the games, once I do my allocated set of chores of course).

    I had a huge chuckle because my other half is the same with the tv, especially when watching a movie. The house rumbles for god's sake!

    What's funny about my male's selective hearing is that my husband is almost deaf in one ear (illness as a child) but if we're arguing and I mumble something puerile and nasty (or something involving his country music and swear words) - he will hear it from another room with those thick things - oh WALLS! - in between.

    If only we could bottle this and sell it - we'd be rich! Imagine...all your hearing problems solved!

    He also has this irritating habit (which he tries to pin on me!) of waiting until I walk away into another room before saying something, so I have to come back and go "what did you say?" and look like a complete and utter asshat. It also gives him the opportunity to go "Well, FOR THE SECOND TIME!! I said..." which invokes all manner of eye-rolling from me.

    Sigh. good times.

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