Speak up, sonny.

So, let's say that someone decides she needs a hobby. She tries out vocal jazz and thinks that it could be a fantastic choice. Then she finds out that she has progressive hearing loss. Is that ironic? Because that Alanis Morissette song has really confused me about the definition of that word.

After asking people to repeat themselves 4,000,000,000 times, I decided to go to the doctor. Beforehand, I Googled "hearing loss," and got all freaked out about something called otosclerosis. However, otosclerosis is a genetic disorder, and no one in my family has it. Probably just a buildup of earwax.

"It's not earwax," the doctor gravely reported, "Those ears are clean as a whistle." Then she stuck her primitive hearing test otoscope thingy in my left ear and told me to raise my hand when I heard the tone. Just like in elementary school! She left it in there for a long time. I waited for her to play the tones. What was she waiting for? Then she took it out.

Long story short: I have pretty significant hearing loss in my left ear and some in my right ear and I go to the audiologist in about a month to get a full assessment. Oh, and, as it turns out, my dad has otosclerosis, but he never said anything about it because he thought it was caused by noise exposure. This kind of oversight is typical of my parents, who are not obsessed with medical information like I am.

Anyway, I can get hearing aids or possibly surgery depending on the extent of the hearing loss and type and all of that. Until then, if we're chatting and you tell me a joke and I don't laugh, it's probably because I didn't hear it (well, it might be because I heard it, but I didn't think it was that funny).