Now hear this

Walter Mitty: The most famous daydreamer of all.

I wouldn’t call it selective hearing exactly. The word “selective” implies the ability to choose what to listen to and not listen to. But my own hearing condition involves another kind of choice: the choice to zone out entirely.

“Where are you?” Barnard asks me sometimes when we are watching Modern Family over dinner or driving to Carterton to buy biltong. Embarrassingly, he is well-attuned to my compulsive habit of daydreaming. Like the lead character in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, I’m never just walking down a street or washing the dishes or (as Barnard well knows) watching TV. I’m replaying a conversation or writing an email or being interviewed on my latest bestselling novel. All inside my head.  

But a few months ago, I started to wonder if the real reason I didn’t hear everything people said was the gradual deterioration of my audio receptive capacities – otherwise known as hearing loss. At work, I sometimes found myself straining to hear the words of customers or workmates. Were there really that many low-talkers in the world?

“I’m going to have a hearing test,” I told my boss. “What was that?” she replied.

The reception area at Bay Audiology was clean and shiny, and very white. The receptionist’s bright red glasses provided a welcome pop of colour as I filled out the obligatory form before being shown into a small brown room by a smiling young man with an unpronounceable name on his badge. He said I could call him VP. In one corner of the room, a small white booth with a single chair inside waited patiently.  

First, VP asked me some questions about my hearing. Did I work in a noisy environment, did I go to loud concerts very often, did I have difficulty communicating with family members? No, no and no. He stuck a strange device further into my left ear than was comfortable and had a poke around. There was some wax build-up in there, he said, that could be cleared with olive oil drops. My right ear was fine. Then he pointed to the booth. It was business time.  

VP gave me some headphones to put on and gave me a small handheld device with a button on top, much like I imagine you would give a television game show contestant. He told me to press the button hard every time I heard a sound. And then he closed the door. The back of it was covered in small holes which resembled a wall of black dots. I felt dizzy. I closed my eyes. All I could hear was my heartbeat – and occasionally, a single bland tone, like the one the TV used to make when transmission stopped at midnight. Every time I heard a tone I pressed the button.

A few minutes later, the test was over. As I exited the booth, VP reassured me that my hearing was entirely normal. Perhaps, he said with a smile, it was a lack of concentration that sometimes caused me to miss the words spoken by friends and colleagues.

“Are you writing in your journal or working on your book?” Barnard asked me later as I sat on the couch scribbling.

“I’m writing about my hearing test.”

“But you said nothing really happened.”

“I’ve got some thoughts about it.”

“Like what?”

“Like how maybe I don’t always listen when people are talking to me.”

“Oh f*** yeah. Write that s*** down. Especially how you don’t always listen to your boyfriend.”