Weekly Writing Challenge: From Mundane to Meaningful

WordPress sent out a notice that they are starting a weekly writing challenge.  Here’s the first one.

Weekly Writing Challenge: From Mundane to Meaningful

I got my hearing checked not so long ago.  I thought maybe I wasn’t hearing things as well as I used to.  One clue was that I found myself telling my husband more and more often “I can’t hear you.”

Like when I am washing dishes, have the water running in the sink and he’s in the other room saying something (I think).  I tell him, “I can’t hear you with the water running.”

Like when I’m just getting home from work, closing the garage door and still in the doorway between the garage and the house and he’s in another room saying something (I think).  I have to tell him, “I can’t hear you with the garage door noise.”

Like when I lean over the paper shredder, feed some paper through and hubby is in another room saying something (I think).  I tell him, “I can’t hear you with the shredder running.”

Like when I’m in the shower with the water running and he’s in the other room saying something (I think).  I have to tell him, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

Actually I can hear something, just not well enough to understand what he is saying.  So I got my hearing checked.

The nurse takes me back to the testing area and asks me all kinds of questions.  Funny, I can understand her just fine.  The technician situates me in the booth with the headphones and I press the button each time I hear the tone.  The results show that my hearing is within normal range.  That doesn’t mean that I haven’t lost any hearing, as they don’t have anything to compare it to.  It just means that my hearing level is “normal.”

In talking with the doctor after the test, I explain all the situations where I can’t hear what my husband is saying.  “What about that?” I ask.

“Without actually being there,” he says, “I’m guessing that contributing factors are that you’re married and your husband is male.”

I just look at him.  “Can I have my money back?”

Let There Be Light

Many dog people turn off the interior lights of their vehicles.  (Dog people are those of us who take their dogs hither and yon for agility trials, hunt tests, tracking tests, earth dog tests, obedience trials, fly ball tournaments (and more) and training for such.) We turn off the lights altogether because in central Texas, it’s hot about nine months out of 12 and we leave our vehicles open in various configurations (windows, doors, hatchbacks, etc.) while we are training or competing.  We don’t want to find out at the end of a training session or a canine sporting event that the battery is dead because of that itty-bitty light.

So we turn off the light completely.  Sure, some vehicles have the “fading” light setting, where it will turn itself off after a specified amount of time even if a door or the hatchback is open, but not all vehicles have that feature.  And some of us might have it and not know that we have it.  Or can’t figure out which of the three settings takes care of that situation.  (Ahem.) So many possibilities.

I turned off the interior lights in my vehicle probably a few weeks after I bought it in 2001.  Since then, I’ve packed up my dogs and driven them all over Texas for training and competitions.  I took a break from competition when I retired my last agility dog, Clint (HRCH UH Bakbay Make My Day MH MX MXJ CGC WCX) in 2007.

That break stretched out a bit longer than I intended when I encountered some unexpected difficulties, like a sprained knee.  That was three years ago and I haven’t returned to training or competition.  (I’m thinking about it; don’t rush me.  But it’s hot.  Or cold.  Windy.  Too sunny.  Foggy.  Too cloudy.  And look, a quilt fabric shop!)

On Friday, as I was getting out to open the gate in the pre-dawn hours of the morning on my way to work, it occurred to me that it was dark inside my vehicle.  Maybe, I thought, I could turn the interior light back on.  And I did.

Oh, it was so bright!  Then I vaguely remembered that there was a light near the hatchback.  I checked and sure enough, there it was!  I turned it on as well.

Oooh, aaahhhh. Of course, I had to sit at the gate in my vehicle after I closed the hatchback and the door to confirm that they did turn off properly.  Yep, they still work.

Will wonders never cease.

The Willpower Instinct

book cover: Willpower Instinct

Willpower Instinct

 
I just received my copy of The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.

I can hardly wait to start reading it, but first I’m going to finish off this bag of potato chips.