And Toto, too? ...When Ears Go Bad

Remember that heroic scene from the film Independence Day when Randy Quaid flies his missile-laden aircraft right up the tuckus of the aliens' mother ship?  He's bellowing "I'M BAAAACK!!!!!" It speaks to me... or rather speaks for me... especially when there's been a long time between posts.

Seriously, I can recall his nasally taunt with a clarity rivaled only by Billie Burke's syrupy reply in the Wizard of Oz. I'm referring to the scene in which Glinda the Good Witch of the North has just broken the news to an ecstatic Dorothy that she will be clicking her heels back to Kansas.

Dorothy pleads, "And Toto, too?"

Whereupon Glinda burbles back, "And Toto, too!" It has the joyous import of "Avon Calling!" and the Hallelujah chorus all rolled into four glorious syllables. Remarkable dialogue, isn't it?

Is my age showing?

There was a time when my mother used to greet the Fuller Brush Man like a long lost brother. (Pox on you who are murmuring, "Brush Man? What the hell?") He was just one of the door-to-door salesmen who entered our house before home invasion was even a concept. There's a catch in her voice...

"This is the best brush I've ever had. It's seven years old! Real boar."

She was instructing me in the art of bristle maintenance: Warm soapy water... The nose-wrinkling tang of vinegar. Was I five at the time? (And you thought Sesame Street was educational...)

I can still hear the chinking clatter of the milkman's bottle carrier as he set it on the step while he unfastened the milk chute. Milk chute?

Sound bites. They're the eidetic memory of our ears.

So what happens when ears go bad? Life becomes surreal. I know it well.

My spouse and I are sitting in a cafe, discussing our to do list. He mumbles into his menu.

"Your cleaning with the tuner belt?" I ask. Focused the list of salads, my eyes cross with the sudden effort of trying to decode the words free-falling in my brain.

My husband looks up and enunciates, "I'm leaning towards the tuna melt."

Later:

"I can't hear you if I can't see you!" I call up the stairs to my son who has revealed his plans for the evening. He sounds like a back-up singer for Sha-Na-Na.

He finds me and says, "Read my lips. Hearing Aids."

It's time.