Thank goodness for lip reading….

I mentioned lip reading earlier but I just have so many experiences where I depended totally on it and almost laugh at myself at how good I am. I currently work on the grounds crew at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Provo Temple, which is the absolute dream job, where we are constantly mowing lawns, blowing the walks down and riding in the truck where there is a lot of loud outside, background noise which makes it really hard to hear for anyone but especially someone who can’t hear. When we work with the loud equipment, we wear ear plugs- I just wear one in my left ear and leave my right aid in but off, it works as well as an ear plug but I can turn it on really fast if I needed it. It took me a couple days to realize that although I understood what everyone was saying when I wasn’t standing right next to them or actually hearing them, that I couldn’t just talk back in my normal voice with them 20 feet away, they can’t hear me. So I have to remind myself that when someone wants to talk to me while I am mowing, I have to turn off my mower and stand right next to them so that they can hear me. Even when I do that, I forget take out my ear plugs because I still understand what they are saying. I’m sure my co-workers probably wonder why I don’t and how I know what’s going on. I call it a little blessing for all the times I can’t hear.

Lip reading has come in handy especially when my hearing aid batteries decide to die at the most inconvenient times, and especially when that’s the one time and place I don’t have extras. So two summers ago, this really cute, tall, blonde haired guy asked me to go help him drop a letter off for his friend a half an hour away. So we set out in his silver stick shift truck (so being on his right side, my left ear was to him which is my bad ear) and start talking nonstop. Thankfully he had a deep manly voice that I could actually understand- some guys’ voices tend to sound like mumbling to me, I don’t know if that’s a problem for other people… So we were having a great conversation and about ten minutes into the drive, my left hearing aid battery beeped (it beeps once as kind of a five minute warning until it dies and then it beeps again where it dies.) and I almost laughed out loud-yes this would happen to me as I am talking to a really cute guy- so I silently pray for help from above. I kept following the conversation knowing my battery was going to die soon on that side, I shifted in my seat so I was almost facing him but not too creepily far and tried to read his lips. I’m sure he loved me almost completely facing him and staring at his lips… oh did I mention it was dark? Ya it was later so I couldn’t see his lips amazingly well anyway. So I do pretty well because I still had my good ear alive and we talked mostly about sports. We got to the house and dropped off the letter but of course the family wanted to talk to this guy because they were really good friends, so we spend a good half hour there where my left aid is totally dead and my right aid beeps. Great. I’m going to drive back basically deaf. We start driving back, I took my left aid out so that it wouldn’t act as an ear plug and I just waited for the other on to die, which it did. Good thing we were still talking about sports but most of our conversation was him telling me all about him and his crazy injury stories, which was great because I could just smile and nod or sympathetically sigh randomly and hope I did it at the right time. Of course there were a couple times where he told me about one of his horrible breaks and I’m sure I smiled and nodded… anyway we get back, and I’m just ready to be done because I really can’t hear anything now… but he asked if I wanted to stay a little longer and talk in the bed of his truck. Well duh I wanted to but I decided I was going to have to take over and talk the whole time. So he sat in one corner, and thankfully we were by a street light so I could actually see his lips now, and I sat in the diagonal one, furthest from him so that I could see him without craning my neck. So with my batteries both dead, we sat and talked for a good 45 more minutes in the bed of his truck and when I kind of ran out of sports stories and the low down about my future in college, and was kind of tired of making a fool of myself, I told him I should probably go- he gave me a hug goodnight so I figured I said something right that whole time….

I got home and put my face in a pillow and screamed, laughed and cried all at the same time.  My mom and I had a good laugh about it, but I was completely mortified. To top it off, a couple days later, we had a church activity at a water park (I have to take out my aids when I go swimming) and who did I see? This cute, tall, blonde guy who happened to not be able to find his friends so he tagged along with my sister and I for a good portion of the night where I again couldn’t hear!! I got way too good at it with him. All I could do was be so embarrassed and laugh about it! Come to find out later- he had no idea, he never thought once that I couldn’t hear until he saw my aids… oh goodness… now I just look back and laugh in amazement.