Nancy Classics by Ernie Bushmiller for December 30, 2019

The only bell worth hearing for Nancy.

And half a century plus later, it’s the one thing that haven’t changed with children.

It depends on the bell!

I was thrilled when one of my teen age workers was able to set up my smart phone with a ringer app that sounds just like the old Bell system clanging bells. Up to that point, I had missed many phone calls as I could not recognize the chirps, wheezes and rattles[ R2D2 and BB8 having an argument it sounded like] as a call coming in.

I put myself playing one of my own pieces in as the ringtone on my cell, but I never hear it because it’s always on vibrate. I don’t want to be the guy whose phone rings in public.

This ice cream truck has the same ‘melody’ as the frozen-treats guy who passes through our neighborhood in warmer weather: just random jangling. Hard to guess what I’d less rather hear all day on the job. I know I’m glad not to be in retail where the unavoidable music is often a single CD set on constant Repeat.

Selective hear-ring!

Doesn’t make sense for the ice cream man to come to our neighborhood ‘til summer. That’s when all the snow here in Vail has melted.

Nancy is deef as a turnip! Is the Fritz hand coming to answer the phone, or to shake Nancy from her silent reverie?

I understand Nancy completely! When I’m deeply immersed in a book, I’m OBLIVIOUS to my surroundings. At least—until one of the cats jumps into my lap, claws out…

Just wait until the advent of telemarketers – that phone will ring all the time!

Maybe Nancy is actually 85 and had been all along. That would explain so much.

Cats and dogs have selective hearing as well. Electric can opener for their food and manual for the rest of us. (The Mrs gave me a left-handed one for Xmas)

Pavlov’s Nancy.

Aren’t you kind of young to have selective hearing, Nancy?

They hear what they want to.