Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt for December 07, 2023

In a room full of hearing aids turned off.

Drifting is not as good as floating but it’s better than sinking.

“Drowning” or “Suffocating” is more accurate. I feel as if I’m in an enormous radio tuned to many stations simultaneously. During family parties, occasionally I retreat to some quiet, cool room apart from everybody.

Adrift in mine-filled waters..

With torpedo chasers!!

she needs a life boat…

Listening? What’s that?

…that’s why I stopped debating on Facebook…

…with people at work…

…and at Thanksgiving dinner…

…it’s part of a deeper problem…

…of splendid isolation…

…caused by our phone devices…

…for instance…

…I have a weird coincidence…

…I turned off my Prius the other day and the car said,’ F.O.B. key battery low.‘…

…I told my wife & she said her Camey F.O.B. said the same thing…

… Hmm…

… I opened up my Camry F.O.B….

… took a picture of the battery number& went to Walmart…

…I found the two pack of the flat-watch style type batteries and realized that the stocking cap that I wear when I walk our dog’s lamp lights were also low…

…(yes, I’m nerdy enough to have lights on my stocking cap)….

… I checked what kind and how many batteries it needed(4)…

… and picked out two packs of them, paid & went home…

…Once home, I opened up my Camry F.O.B. & my wife’s and replaced the batteries…

…Wait…

…darn it..

…I was supposed to replace my Prius batteries! …

…Ugh. …

…Oh well…

…So I continued on to to my stocking cap batteries…

…The second pack of batteries were not the same as the first…

…It was one small single battery. Darn it! I’m striking out all over the place…

…Another trip, so I opened the Prius F.O.B. to take a picture of the battery…

…and it was the same number as the small mistaken battery I bought!

…Weird weird weird…

… Knock! Knock! …hello!…

…wind blowing…

…is anyone listening?…

Drifting off to sleep, on the monolog sea.

Oh they’re listening. Each one of them. Just long enough to get triggered.

So…you’re a member of congress?

She must’ve been with my parents in the morning before they put on their hearing aids.

That sounds like any Church Of The Subgenius radio show.

Puzzling Evidence on KPFA is a good example https://kpfa.Org/program/puzzling-evidence/

I’m listening.

Excuse me, What?

There are advantages to age and being a stranger in a strange land. It’s much easier to get away with social disconnection under the guise of partial deafness and inability to understand the language.

Conversely, age and foreign language force one, of necessity, to really listen and interpret what others are saying.

People think you’re much smarter than you are when you don’t talk much and appear to listen to what they are saying.

Maybe if you put on a hat …

That’s the problem. People act like they’re listening and they really don’t HEAR what you’re really saying….their minds drift off to their problems or distractions around them….everybody…..SHUT UP…SO I can hear!

Stop listening to presidential debates

I’ll never share your secrets because I’m not listening.

Current company excluded of course.

Introverts of the world, STAND UP and go home…

A leaf billowing on gusts of vapid trumpeting.

True that.

…and that’s the truth Ruth! (With apologies to Spike Lee) I usually end those conversations in a hurry, as it is easy to see those that are just waiting for a space between the words to go all non sequitur with their nonsense.

The Sound of Silence.

she looks just like my old cafeteria lady!

A lot of people just want to hear themselves talk.

Blabbing abounds, but listening is pretty much a lost art. Only fans of old-time radio dramas and comedy shows had experience of listening….