David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published June 24, 2003

Where did you say I'm going?

Forget about the blood test -- get the hearing test instead. That's my advice for the soon-to-be-wed set. It could make all the difference.

"You're going deaf." The wife tells me that at least five times a week. She's certain my hearing is nearly kaput and that's the reason I have the volume turned up to 11.

She's wrong, you know. The truth is that I have excellent hearing. It's phenomenal, if I do say so my own darn self. In fact it's so good that I can discern a wide dynamic range of sounds, far beyond the capacity of most people, some dogs and even a former resident of Krypton. But in order for me to take in and enjoy the full spectrum of sounds, I must ease the volume knob up a tad. It makes for a more enjoyable listening experience, and isn't that what it's all about?

Not only that, but my hearing is so good that I'm able to pick up ambient sounds, many of which are unwanted. Louder volumes help me focus my hearing on the desired sounds, thereby overpowering the surplus noise. The way I see it, my wife should be happy I have such responsive, sensitive hearing, a trait I hope we have passed down to our children. She should be thanking me for my genetic input!

"Man, are you full of it." That's her typical response. "Your hearing is just bad. Turn it down, please."

OK.

If anyone has a hearing malfunction, it's her. Countless times I've walked into the room to find her watching TV with the volume unbearably low -- so low that I can't even get the gist the dialog, much less any detail.

"What's happening here?" I'll ask her. "Can you even hear that?" That's when her attention snaps back into focus and she realizes that, no, she can't hear it. Some channels are louder than others, and she's landed on a channel that is much quieter than the one she was previously watching. But somehow her hearing doesn't recognize that the volume on the new channel is significantly lower.

I suspect that as she watches the quiet channel, her attention wanders because she can't make out what's happening on the show. After a few minutes, she's in a hypnotized stupor. At this point, she's doing little more than watching the colors flash across the screen, and that's when I walk in.

The evidence indicates to me that she has not only hearing difficulties, but she has attention issues as well.

Can you see how a pre-wedding hearing test may have benefited your beleaguered correspondent? It's a minor miracle that our volume knobs have survived nearly 10 years of wedded bliss. I read somewhere that slightly more than 50 percent of marriages end in stereo failure.

Tragic. Just think of the children.

Here's another example of our sonically-mismatched relationship. We each have a car that we drive more than the other. There are rare occasions when I drive her car, though, and I always leave the stereo louder than she likes. It happens every time. It's really fun when she and I are in her car after I've been driving it. She turns the ignition key and WHAMMO! The stereo blares to life, instantaneously sending my wife's hand to the volume knob.

Not needing to say a word, she just looks at me. When you've know someone as long as we've known each other, you often do not need to argue. You know what she's going to say, she knows what you're going to say, and you both know how the "conversation" will end -- and you both know that it will happen again.

I can only imagine how many "conversations" are avoided by couples who have been married 40 or 50 years. We'll make it that long, too. Of course, by then, I might actually be deaf.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.