Saturday Night Live . . .

. . . Here It Ain't

Another weekend has rolled around and today has been showery, sunny, windy, and cold. Not very lively around here today or tonight.

Walgreen's opened a new and larger store here yesterday, about four miles away from the BEST site for me, downtown, a few blocks away. But there's good news - the downtown pharmacy will be re-modeled and I won't have to go north to pick up my prescriptions.

And the BEST part of that good news is that when I go to the downtown store to get my prescripions I [probably] won't have to stand in line with 40 other oldies for an hour before getting to the pickup counter - there's going to be a drive- up window.

Like my headline says, it's not Saturday Night Live around here tonight. Maybe it is but to me it's more like Saturday Night Deaf and I'll tell you why.

Remember a few blogs ago I told you about losing a $1,500 hearing aid for a few days and then finding it bathing in our hot tub?

Well now I've lost the OTHER $1,500 hearing aid. This left ear aid is the most important one because it has the controls for the left AND right ears and without it the right ear isn't getting much action.

Here's what happened this time. The phone rang. I picked up the receiver, and pressed the button to amplify the caller's voice.

I took out the left hearing aid so I could hear BEST on the amplified phone, and laid it down beside the computer. I haven't a clue where the thing got to after that phone conversation.

I suppose you want to know why I took it out instead of just listening. Here's why - the new technology of both the phone and the hearing aids clash somewhat and I get static loud and clear but clear voices - no.

So I take out the aid and boost the amplification of the phone and I'm in business.

When I got these new-fangled ears, the purveyor gave me a set of magnets to put on the phone to recify the technology-generated static.

I was to attach them to the phone and move them around until the sound was BEST.

Another problem there - sort of a 'conflict of interest' thing.

You see, I have a Pacemaker in my left shoulder. I listen on the phone with my left ear. But with a Pacemaker, one can't get it close to magnets because that will cause - well I don't really know what that will cause but it's a no-no.

Yes, I did find the right ear aid in the jacuzzi, dried it out and it seemed to work OK. Without the left ear with its control, however, the right ear aid doesn't do me much good.

So I have resurrected the older pair I had earlier in the year. One of them is working and I hope the other will with a new battery, once I find the batteries the older pair used.

In the meantime, for days, and today for hours, Lady B and I have scoured this house looking for that left ear hearing aid. Now folks, pray with us that we will find it. We need your help - so far our own prayers haven't worked yet.

I guess at this point, dear readers, if you've gotten this far, you are saying to yourselves "why is he yapping about hearing aids to me?"

Well, I guess I had to get it off my chest somehow, and Lady B is tired of my whimpering about them.

It would be nice if that new Walgreen's could furnish me some new aids at a much cheaper - repeat - MUCH cheaper price than the place where I got them a few months ago.

- 30 -