Talking with elderly parents is like the end of that one Geico commercial.
“Who?.. WHO?!”
But actually, it’s not a non-wise dementia thing. It’s worse than that.
They’re still both sharp as can be – but maybe too proud to go ahead and get the auditory assistive devices they need that’d stop them from asking everyone to repeat themselves (“Who?! Who?! WHO!!!1”) every time we have a conversation. What is it about a good old fashioned hearing device our aging parents hate so much? A big fleshy colored rock sitting in your ear? That can’t be it – they make smaller ones now. Or is it, like, acknowledging you have a problem beyond your control that’s so hard? Like how I don’t wanna go to the neurologist because I’m half afraid he’ll be like, “you have early onset neurol-bla-blabla and that’s why you’re seeing sounds and getting visits from the Goblin King at night.” #nocomplaintsthere
Is that it? Ol’ ostrich head in the sand thing?
I certainly appreciate how that goes. And they’re not alone, so I’ve heard. The good news is mayhaps our good old dads and moms may be able to both get some non-device related help soon. For instance, there’s this new gene therapy out that uses the protein NT3, to help restore neurons associated with hearing and hearing loss. The dude who studied the effects of increasing NT3 productivity in mice even thinks we may be able to do it in pill form before too long. (“Just take it with your ginko biloba, dad! Just eat it with your insulin pills, mom! It’ll be fun!”)
Sadly, these therapies prob won’t be ready by Christmas.
Which sucks for me because I suppose mom and dad may have to settle for old school hearing aids. Wait – is that too cruel a gift? Yes? I guess I could just buy them the Geico owl itself. It may not seem very relevant, but what it will do is serve excellently as one of those “Well I was going to get you this awful and mean gift, but instead I bought this majestic bird! I think you all will get along very nicely since you share the same hobbies – like making people repeat themselves all the time.”
It’ll be like that Chappelle skit when Li’l Jon talks to himself.
And then, of course, I’ll just keep him. For myself.
Irony: Level 10 cute aggression has led to my own eardrums imploding into deafness.
My argument will be that by keeping this adorable bastard with wings around “WHO” constantly asks me to repeat myself, maybe it will make me less angry when I have to deal with mumsy and daddykins doing the same and never getting hearing devices so that they’ll stop doing it. Like that flooding thing therapists do – or desensitization via sentimentality. The more my glorious avian plays the two-year-old-toddler same-question game, the more my association with the word will become one of love and compassion. Right?
Now I just have to find a bird that asks the other interrogative articles of speech:
Nope.
Nevermind.
It’ll take Archimedes’ buddy Merlin to cure me of that one.