by Denise Dykstra
It was recently my birthday and my boys gifted me with earbuds.
I have never had earbuds.
When I was young and I happened to get a portable cd player that came with some foam headphones, my parents would regularly remind me not to turn it all the way up because I was sure to go deaf from them. If my parents could hear what was playing, it was too loud.
And somehow this thought has stayed with me.
Never mind that my husband, a truck driver, has an ear piece that he has in his ear all day while driving and all weekend because he is so used to the hands-free way of talking on the phone and listening to podcasts.
Never mind that I have gifted my youngest children with ear buds, and never once thought to remind them to keep turned down or they will go deaf.
I have consulted my oldest son, a mechanic, of his ear bud choice because he is a researcher through and through and I knew he would know which ones were good.
My son in the Navy bought me a portable wireless speaker for Mother’s Day and I am prone to carry that around wherever I go in the house. But recently after spending nearly two hours mowing the lawn, I realized that with ear buds I could have finished the audiobook I had been listening to. I do not care for the sound of a lawn mower and the idea of that sound being muted and instead my story being read to me, sounded delightful.
I could not bring myself to purchase a pair. What if I didn’t like them?
I had gotten to where I knew how to jam my phone in my shirt in such a way that I could hold it mostly on my shoulder and then I could hear when the narrator would take a soft tone, or not miss all the words of a podcast while I was watering flowers or hanging laundry on the line.
My boys had had enough. When I opened the gifted earbuds with surprised exclamations, my boys told me how tired they were of me not making a decision about them so they decided for me.
Not only did they purchase the earbuds for me for my birthday, they paired them and then set to teaching me how to use them.
I wish we had had a video of the exchange between us. It was pretty epic.
My 15-year-old was shouting at me, “OKAY! THE MUSIC IS ALL THE WAY UP.” I must interject here to say he did this just so I would be forced to learn quickly. He knows my thoughts on music all the way up. “TURN DOWN YOUR EARBUDS.”
I tapped the way he told me to and the music did not lessen. I was tapping away at my ears frantically to make it stop. I could see his laughter. “Ma, no. You literally have tapped on that thing everywhere but where you were supposed to. Try again,” he explained while pulling the ear bud out.
This went on too long for him. “Ma, you are old. Just use your phone to control your ear buds.” He shook his head at me like I was a very lost cause.
As I happened to be in the middle of a book I could hardly seem to walk away from, I spent my birthday weekend on a bench outdoors in the shade of my front porch finishing a small knitting project. My 17-year-old son plopped down next to me. “How are those working?” he asked.
“Great!” I smiled back at him and paused my book. He pulled the ear bud out of my ear. “Start it up,” he told me. He took my phone. “Really? All the way loud? Mom,” he shook his head at me as only a son can shake his head at his mother.
“But I can hear you all so it’s not too loud,” I protested.
He turned my head. “You have to shove them in your ear. Here. Like this.” And suddenly there was for sure an ear bud in my ear and I could hear only the characters of my book talking loudly — much too loudly — at me.
I didn’t tell him I was afraid to listen to the noise cancelling way of the ear buds. How was I to know what was going on in the house if all I could hear was this? My not all the way in the ear canal way of listening to my ear buds seemed a safer, more motherly if you will, option.
The next day, alone in my house, I decided to put in the earbuds just as the boys had said. I would shove them in my ears. I would block out the noise of the house, as I was the only one there anyhow, and I would just live in my book I was listening to. I assured myself I would not go deaf.
I was proud of myself for facing my fear of the noise cancelling earbuds. What a silly fear anyhow. I am a grown woman, I reasoned. My children even claim me old. I could do this!
And as it would happen, I promise you I could not make this next part up, I walked around the corner of my house headed to the kitchen to tackle some dishes and there, standing in the middle of the front room of the house, was my dad. He had been calling out to see if I was home but guess what? I couldn’t hear him.
Never has a grown woman listening to earbuds felt so busted. “Oh, Dad, hello!” I smiled as I pulled them quickly out of my ears.
My dad just shook his head at me as he walked in to sit at the table for some tea and morsel of food with conversation.
I’m sure I am not too old to figure out the earbuds and I really am so excited to have them. Do you use earbuds? What is your favorite thing about them?
