My wife, Beatrice, claims she’s slightly deaf. Slightly. Like, she can hear a jet engine taking off, but misses the subtle nuances of a whispered conversation. Or, as she puts it, “I prefer the bold flavors of life, darling.” This means I have to shout everything, which is exhausting. So, I took her to the doctor.
Dr. Finch, a kindly man with a walrus mustache that quivered with every word, examined Beatrice’s ears with impressive concentration. He tapped them, peered into them with a magnified lamp that looked suspiciously like a futuristic hair dryer, and then declared, “I have a simple test to determine the extent of your hearing loss, Mrs. Bumble.”
Beatrice, ever the dramatic one, clutched my hand. “Oh, Doctor! Will it hurt?”
Dr. Finch chuckled, a sound like gravel tumbling down a hill. “Not at all. I’ll simply whisper a word in your ear, and you repeat it back to me.”
He leaned in, whispered something into her ear, and waited. Beatrice beamed, a mischievous glint in her eye.
“Broccoli!” she announced triumphantly.
Dr. Finch blinked, his walrus mustache twitching even more violently. “I said, ‘Open your mouth’.”
