My wife has bat ears. I have worm ears.
As you probably know, worms don’t have ears. So by implication my hearing isn’t worth squat.
My wife can hear a pin drop on a deep pile carpet at the other end of the house during a thunderstorm.
I can hear a train go by, so long as it isn’t more than two houses away and the skies are clear.
A burglar could clean us out and be halfway to Canada before anyone noticed, if I’m home alone. And he would land in jail after tiptoeing up the driveway of the house at the end of the block, if my wife is anywhere in the neighborhood.
We live in a two-story house. My wife can be in the garage with the door to the hallway closed. I can be upstairs, with my jaw pointed to the opposite horizon. And she invariably will call out, “What are you eating?” before I can scoop up a second spoonful of cereal.
My wife can hear a whisper from the other side of the room, especially if the topic is websites or cooking.
I couldn’t hear a whisper if it came through a megaphone, even if the topic was planes, trains, automobiles or food. I hope this at least partially disproves my wife’s claims that my hearing is selective.
It used to bother me, this bat-like ability of hers to hear anything that she wishes. Then I had a stroke of deductive genius.
Bird dogs need to flush…race horses need to race…fowl need to fly…or they will lose their extraordinary gift. My wife needs to exercise her ears. Or who knows what she might lose?
Her knowledge of how to create and manage websites? Her skill at taking care of a home and me? Or, heaven forbid, her so-far unfailing ability to figure out how any restaurant cooks what it cooks well, and after minimal experimentation to serve it in our home? No way am I messing around with messing-up talents like those!
So what if she can hear everything that I do, and maybe sometimes what I think, too? I’ll live with it!
So long as she doesn’t start hanging from the ceiling.