Open Mic Convention 2005

Open Mic 2005 Convention
by
Chris Henderson


I thought I’d share with you some of the many wonderful experiences I’ve had. I like to think each one has made me a bit wiser. It’s not necessarily so, but I like to think it, just the same.

So, about a year ago I got a hearing aid. I read the manual, of course, as I do not happen to suffer from testosterone poisoning. There are a few things they neglected to mention, so just in case you ever get one, here are some things not to do with your new hearing aid. You might think some of these things would just be matters of common sense. You’d be wrong. Some things, say, don’t sit in front of the amps at a rock concert, well, nobody had to tell me that, but:

1. Do not brush your teeth with your hearing aid in. Especially if you have an electric toothbrush. A regular old manual toothbrush will just resonate with the hearing aid, causing your ear to itch. The worst of that, is that being right-handed, and having the hearing aid in my right ear, I had to rinse my hand frantically, while still foaming madly at the mouth, and dry my hand, before I could yank the hearing aid out and scratch vigorously. At least that was a solvable problem. Now, an electric toothbrush will set up a harmonic vibration, which will resonate between both ears, via your sinuses, causing your eyes to bug out, making everything from the crown of your head all the way down through your lungs, itch! Let’s just see you try to scratch the backs of your eyeballs.

2. Do not point the car’s air conditioning vents at your face and turn the fan to high. The hearing aid not only sucks in and amplifies the sound to match a jet engine in flight, it also sucks in the cold air. Now you’re deafer than ever, your ear drum is frozen, and you’ve got ice-cream-brain-freeze, without even getting any ice cream!

3. Do not put the phone to your deaf ear, having forgotten that you turned up the volume to “mastodon bellow”. Especially when it’s your mother on the phone. Oddly enough, she will not appreciate hearing “Hel AAHHHHHH, my ear, my ear”. Not that I think your mother will instantly hang up, dial 911, and inform the emergency operator that you are being murdered in your own home. Possibly by an ice-pick wielding escaped lunatic. Oh, while I’m giving out hot tips here, it doesn’t matter who made the 911 call, you will be charged for the false alarm! Now you’re really deafer than ever, you’re broke, and down at the firehouse you’re a laughingstock!

Other interesting things I have learned (“interesting”, that’s what I was taught to say instead of “Jeezuz Pete, what kind of an idiot are you?”) . So, for all you folks with a mate who happens to be male:

First, let me say this is not male bashing, this is very nearly scientific evidence! I have asked many friends what they thought of this situation. The men all say “What situation?”, and the women all say “Jeezuz Pete –“, um, no, wait, I mean, they all say “Hhmmm, interesting”. I will admit, I think that at puberty, many males have their brains sliced in half, and crammed into two tiny spheres. You can imagine the thinking difficulties this causes. Of course, it can be recovered from, with time. Sometimes. On the other hand…

Well, so the dentist tells my husband he should get an electric toothbrush. I say fine, mine came with two brush heads, I’ll color code them, and we’ll share the handle, the battery pack. You’d think I’d suggested we save money by using the same string of floss. Okay, fine! I get him his own fancy toothbrush. The next day he comes home from work all ticked off. He says the brush made him have to change clothes twice, and did I clean his bathroom yet? Why would I clean his bathroom? I don’t even clean my bathroom, we have a cleaning lady, once a week, on Fridays. This is Tuesday. Bob says, “I don’t think it’ll come off if it stays there ‘til Friday”.

So I say, “Dear, the cleaning lady doesn’t do laundry”. He says he knows that, he’s talking about the walls. So after he wastes another 20 minutes of my life, which I will never get back, I get the whole story.

Mr. Genius, being of an inquiring mind, put the toothpaste on the toothbrush, held it up in front of his face to watch it, and turned it on! This caused toothpaste to be deposited all over the mirror, the counter, the sink, and his dress shirt and silk tie. You wanna talk about something never coming off, the shirt can be washed, but that tie is history. Well, at this point in the story I’m laughing hysterically, and he’s getting madder by the second. Okay, fine, I say, I’ll hose out his bathroom tomorrow. “No, wait”, he says, “I’m not done yet”. I had to ask, “Did you do it twice? Jeezuz Pe - , I mean, how interesting”.

Seems Mr. Genius went and changed his clothes, then came back to try again. What kind of an idiot gets all dressed before brushing his teeth, anyway? At least that explains why the tips of his ties are always darker and kind of stiff.

Okay, so, he puts the toothpaste on, puts the toothbrush in his mouth, then turns it on, and brushes away, ever so proud of himself for this fabulous accomplishment. Puts the toothbrush down, notices his cuff is wet. And pink. With a little blue stripey bit. Yes, he had in fact gotten completely re-dressed before the second tooth brushing attempt. But this was not the worst of it.

He says, “You never told me there’s a certain amount of blowback”. What? “Blowback. You know, when I was brushing the inside of my bottom front teeth, blowback. So I had to go change my shirt and tie again.”

Well, that’s 2 for 2, I’m thinking, but wait… The wheels are turning, I’m visualizing…

“Dear, did you brush your teeth with your mouth hanging open?”

“Of course,” he says, “How else?”

“Dear, they only do that in commercials so you can see the lovely frothy bubbles. Any idiot knows better than to get completely dressed before tooth brushing. And, any idiot knows better than to brush standing up straight with his mouth hanging open. And, you, you do this daily? Jeezuz Pete, how interesting are you?!!”