Can I hear you now? ..Yes!

Can you hear me now? I thought it was a question I could answer at any given time with some amount of confidence. I am not sure anymore, if what I heard was what I heard, or if I heard it to its full capacity.

I made my first visit to an Ear, Nose & Throat doctor today for, among other reasons, to get my ears checked out. For a while, I have felt in my right ear- a little plugged up. Not so much as to greatly affect my hearing, but enough to know it's there, and I told my doctor this, as he looked into my ear with that little light thingy. "Well, you've got a load of wax in there," he said, followed by the question do I clean my ears with Q-tips- yes I said- and went to the lecture we have all heard: the do not put anything in your ear smaller than your elbow speech, you're just making worse blah blah blah. The next thing I know, I was told to be very still and he inserted a cold metal instrument into my ear- much to my discomfort. Be still, I was told again- I thought I had been still, but I guess one loses awareness of one's movement when confronted with cold steel in your ear (no I don't know if it was actual steel, but the gun metaphor adds a certain dramatic flair I just couldn't resist)- and with a touch of effort pulled the instrument out of my ear, and said something to the effect of, "Look at that." What remained on the instrument was a gob of wax, roughly the size of my pinky nail- which doesn't seem like much, even more so given the fact I have very small pinkies, and yet- monumental with the knowledge that it came out of my ear.

Following his conquest on my right ear, the doctor cleaned up the left and sat down at his computer and began asking me questions. It was then I noticed. Every click of his keyboard, every "s" in his speech hit my ears with such ferocity that I exclaimed something like, "Wow, everything's really loud," or something stupid of the like- to which responded, dryly and seemingly unimpressed, "I'll try to talk quieter." I left the office and walked out into the bitter cold morning. Bitter, cold, loud morning. Truck breaks, taxis honking, a bird flapping its wings twelve blocks away. I had supersonic hearing, I explained to my coworkers, once I had reached the office. And every time I spoke, it sounded as if I was speaking into a tin can and having the sound bounced right back at me. The rustle of papers, the ring of the phone, the guy sneezing two floors below me. My hearing had improved to annoying level. And it continued like this for the rest of the day. Sounds I had heard in the past as background noise, competed for my attention with ones right in front of me.

So what have I learned (besides the whispered secrets of people fifty feet away from me)? I am sticking to the Q-tips. Sorry, Doc. A little wax goes a long way from keeping someone sane. No one should hear as well as I heard after leaving that office. I now understand fully why Superman needed his fortress of solitude. Can I hear you now? Most definitely. So be careful what you say, wherever you are- because whether I like it or not, I may be listening.