from Catherine Castle
The other morning while having breakfast my husband said, “Listen. Do you hear that?”
"What?” I asked.
“That whoosha whoosha sound.”
I listened intently. “Nope. All I hear is the ticka ticka ticka of the refrigerator in its thaw cycle.”
“No,” he replied. “It’s definitely a whoosha whoosha.”
“Wait,” he said. “It’s changed. It’s now zzz zzz zzz, like the vibrating sound my toy football players used to make on their metal field.
“That’s more of a rooma rooma rooma noise.” I replied.
“No. It’s zzz zzz zzz,” he insisted.
Breakfast was on hold and the cereal got soggy in our bowls as we argued back and forth while the sounds of the thawing cycle of the fridge changed every few minutes. Neither of us heard what the other heard. Finally, the debate ended with a ka-thunk at the end of the defrost cycle. Silence filled the kitchen.
“I don’t hear anything now.” I spooned up a serving of mushy bran cereal, anxious to get back to my breakfast before it dissolved any more.
“Tick tock tick tock,” hubby said as the Mickey Mouse clock second hand rounded the clock face.
“I hear that,” I said. It was the only sound we agreed on, and it’s one that is universally known to represent a clock.
Now, I know men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and we are different in sooooo many ways. But I always thought hearing was hearing. After all, our ears, male or female, are built the same way. We have the same little ear canals connected to the same parts of the brain. I knew, even when I couldn’t hear the sounds, what the writers meant when Batman and Robin fought the bad guys and cartoon balloons appeared on the television screen screaming BAM! POW! SOCKO!
But that morning in the kitchen I had a revelation: I wasn’t to blame when I couldn’t get a mechanic to understand me! All those years I failed to fully communicate with male mechanics wasn’t because I lacked something.
When my husband describes a funny sound in our car, the mechanics all nod their heads knowingly. But when I describe the odd sounds, the male mechanics look at me like I have two heads. I always wondered why I could never get my point across to them, no matter how many times I repeated the explanation of the sounds.
Now, I know why. Apparently, men lack the finite hearing of a woman. They don’t hear things right. A rattle rattle, clatter clatter, boom boom boom probably sounds like chicka chicka, sissa sissa, thunk thunk thunk to them. And anyone with a pair of ears can hear that there’s a world of difference between the two sounds.
Hummm. Maybe I need a female mechanic. She’ll get it. Unlike a guy.
What about you? Does your man hear the same things you do? And I don’t mean when someone speaks to you. But that’s a whole ’nother blog post.
May your upcoming Holidays be happy and bright!
Catherine
