Really? You didn’t bring a calculator? To a statistics test? That you’ve known about since the semester started? Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I need one of those ST/TNG replicators so that these knuckleheads can replicate spare calculators/pens/brains on demand.
Really? I’m just now hearing about [insert dead/dreadfully ill relative here/]****[insert dead/dreadfully ill relative here] now? Circa two hours before the test? Make-up test? Certainly, bring proof. I should write a paper on how having a college student relative is a risk factor for sudden/early death or illness. I’d like to document clusters of mortality/morbidity as they arise mysteriously around test or project due dates.
Dear ear doctors and people who sell hearing aids:
I believe you when you say that my mother’s hearing is “fine for her age”. The problem is that she does not live alone. I mean, officially she does, but Littlebro has lunch with her almost daily and I do things like “come visit” for a month. And she sets the TV so loud that if I am in the same room, I can’t listen to music with the sound-canceling headset on. While I realize that I like my music at low volumes, that headset works well in freaking Atocha train station, the biggest one in Spain: there is no reason it shouldn’t be effective in her living room.
Can you please, pretty please with strawberries, whipped cream and Godiva chocolate sprinkles on top, fit her for a hearing aid now and not, say, when she’s as deaf as her parents are now? You know, before Littlebro and I go deaf due to the volume of her TV/music? When she’s still young enough to get used to wearing a hearing aid, and it’s still going to be effective? It’s even covered by Seguridad Social, damnit! I understand not wanting to look like you’re “over prescribing”, but I swear to the muses and to every god of music there has ever been that even if Mom does not need a hearing aid, her three children do need her to get one.
Kthxbye and please let me know where should I send the strawberries, cream and sprinkles.
We’ve been contemplating asking a certain older relative to get hearing help. Are doctors really so resistant? Is it an insurance issue? Aren’t there fairly cheap hearing aids available without prescription?
The problem is that she won’t ask for an aid unless the doctor/audiometrist says she definitely needs one. But well… back when the Earth had a single continent, the optometrist said that, while my vision wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t bad enough to really warrant glasses, but Mom said to go ahead. After all, she wore glasses, Dad wore glasses: it was sort of expected that their children would be likely to wear glasses.
When we exited the store, I stopped so suddenly that Mom almost ate me. And when she berated me, I exclaimed “Mom! The tree!” “What about the tree?” (the old willow in a yard across the street from the optician’s) “It’s got LEAVES!” “Well, yes, it always has.” “But Mom, I thought it was just a ball of green stuff and the leaves were the pieces that broke off.”
Mom: :eek: :o :o :o “oh my God, how long ago should we have gotten you glasses?” (well, since I was 10 and one of the problems I had was astigmatism… about 7 years)
I really, really, really think that Mom does need a hearing aid now in the same way that I’d needed glasses for years, but since hearing aids aren’t part of her expectations and since they’re still identified with “old age”, she probably won’t get one until she needs it in order to hear the cars in the street. The lady is 70, by the way…
I’ve been thinking of going for an audiometry myself. I don’t think I’ll convince Mom to let me come with her when she is being checked, but I’d need a prybar to keep her from coming with me when I am, and there is a single audiometrist in town… perhaps once we’re there, I can drop an Acme-anvil sized hint or two… I’m in contact with Mom’s GP (it’s my brother’s wife), but hearing aids on someone her own parents’ age is, again, not in SiL-the-GP’s radar. Her own mother is too young for a hearing aid, therefore mine is :smack:
:eek: :o :o :o “oh my God, how long ago should we have gotten you glasses?” (well, since I was 10 and one of the problems I had was astigmatism… about 7 years)