The day Ben went to school after poking his eye I had a feeling the nurse would want information. She did. The phone labeled her as unknown, because over the weekend John upgraded to a new phone and I inherited his old one. Which is a process pocked with glitches. I answered and could hear her introduce herself but it became apparent that she could just barely hear me. I pushed every button I could find to add volume, but to no avail. She tried again. Which, astonishingly had the same result. She suggested that I call her back, which I felt confident I could do. Go to Recent and click. Except that the unknown caller had no number. I searched in my contacts, and then the web, but nothing came up. Finally she tried once more and I yelled our land line digits which she tried. It worked. I assured her that we had taken Ben to an eye doctor. We both agreed it looked awful. Our conversation took about one sixth of the time it took to successfully connect. 

When John described the process of switching phones he had mentioned that I would need to learn things. I brushed him off. I was an old hand at this, and had managed to make do with a phone whose off button had retired, that had trouble keeping a charge all day, and required a convergence of events just to take a screen shot. First world problems. 

But it surprised me when I could not use the phone as a, you know, phone. 

Being able to hear people comes in handy. Yet sometimes there are circumstances more complex than the distance between one person's mouth and the other person's ear to contend with. Perhaps it is the aftermath of an argument you had last month or last year. There is a woman who offended me in 2015 that I still throw up barriers to, even if the actual message is neutral. Clever of me I know.  

I suppose when I turn down the volume on everyone around me the only one I can hear is myself. And even I think that gets old.