Ring Out the Bells!

Are you now or have you ever been a man? Have you ever been associated with men in any way, shape or form?

If so, you’ll know what absolute spineless jessies most men can be when it comes to visiting the doctor. They can be the biggest, roughest, toughest manly man ever to walk the earth but when it comes to getting themselves checked out medically they turn to quivering wrecks and go into petulant teenage sulks – ‘I’m not going and you can’t make me, so there’.

I know this because I am a man.

My hearing used to be so good that I could hear the waspy buzz of a Pizza Hut delivery moped half a mile away. I could have poured the beers and got the napkins ready (have I mentioned that I’m posh, for around here at least?) before he’d dinged, let alone donged. And I could certainly hear well enough to work out that I couldn’t hear my Beloved giving me a list of household jobs that needed doing.

But many moons have sailed the sky since then and years of gig going and the onset of middle age have begun to take their toll. I’m losing my hearing but I’m finding other things.

I’m finding that every newsreader in the world mumbles.
I’m finding that I can’t enjoy the fun of screaming abuse at foreign PPI claim salesmen called ‘Steve’ (allegedly) because my phone appears to ring less and less.
I’m finding that modern singers are rubbish because you can’t tell what they’re saying, not like back in my day.

Worst of all I’m finding that Roger Whittaker has taken up residence inside my right ear. There’s a constant whistling in it (young readers, you might want to search out the least-trendy old person you know for an explanation). Or perhaps it’s a high pitched humming. Or maybe it’s the constant ringing of a bell. Whatever it is, it’s damned annoying and it’s called tinnitus.

Some say that I should go to the doctors with it but I’ve been reading on the internet – why should I talk to one G.P. when I have the shared knowledge of the entire world at my fingertips? – and I found that there’s no cure for this particular ailment. Worse still, it’s often linked to hearing loss. Great. So not only will I have what appears to be the world’s only bee that can hum in the G two octaves above middle C stuck in my ear but odds are that I’m going to get deafer too. It’s enough to make a grumpy old man even grumpier.

But still, I should look on the bright side. It’s great for three a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, the time when the local young guns shout their drunken goodbyes down the street. They used to annoy me and keep me awake for hours but now  I can just roll with my good ear to the pillow and zone them out behind the bells and whistles in my right one.

And I wouldn’t mind the ringing in my ear so much if it were some Christmas classic. All together now, “Ding! Dong! Merrily on high….”  –  what, still too early?

© Shaun Finnie 2012