• Tinnitus… different pitches in each ear, that I’ve had my whole life.
• The refrigerator is quite loud.
• Air traffic from the nearby Air Force and Naval Air bases.
• The neighbor’s son’s muffler.
• The ventilation system in both my offices is incredibly loud.
• The computer fan in one office frequently revs so high, I worry that it might explode.
As someone who has to instruct new hearing aid users on what they’ve been missing and will have to get used to again, I tend to notice many little sounds that others generally do not. Not to mention all the things I never think of… one patient forgot that corduroy pants go zzip zzop when you walk. Another forgot that the dogs nails click across the kitchen tiles. I’ve even had patients marvel that they can hear the pen move across the paper as I write my notes.
Whenever we have a power outage, I am amzed at how quiet the house gets. Even if there is nothing running, there is the constant low-level drone if the current through the house. We live in an incredibly noisy world.