Simon recently discovered that his EarPods can double as hearing aides.
At a work do, he was hearing better than anyone else even over the loud music, when the rest of us were going “Sorry?” “What did you say?” all evening. Perhaps they aren’t as discrete as proper hearing aides but they’re a fraction of the price, and it doesn’t feel so embarrassing to be wearing them. But don’t worry, this isn’t an advertorial or anything – the sad truth is that the latest version of these ear pods no longer have this function. Not sure what happened there? Maybe Big Audiology stepped in and started making threats?
Anyway, the noise cancelling function still works really well. I found this terrifically useful yesterday when I had my office day at work. There have been extensive and noisy renovations going on of some sort on the floor above for a number of weeks. A month ago it got so bad, bits of the ceiling kept falling off onto the hapless workers below. They fixed it with by putting yellow traffic cones around the department saying “caution”.
In the meantime, I find I can sit in my office, scheduling away, quite oblivious, listening to Spotify. The trouble is, your brain can’t help but think that the music is playing out loud, so you subconsciously sing along, and do other noisy things that you think no one else can hear. Hence, when a colleague came in to visit several times, and then said the last time that he felt he had to knock very conspicuously on the glass door so that I would know this time that I needed to stop farting before he came in, I laughed but quite nervously. It reminded me of the story I read a while ago, of the deaf woman who had a cochlear implant and was horrified to discover that farts made a noise.
In retrospect, I should have just brazened it out. Why be ashamed of a natural bodily function, and in the privacy of my own safe space? It’s my office and I’ll fart if I want to.
