My Four Legged Hearing Aid

I get a lot of questions about Roudy, he is my almost constant companion and best friend. You see, Roudy is a four legged friend, he is very small, considered small even for a Chihuahua, which breed I am not so sure that Roudy belongs.

When I say he is my constant companion I mean it, even in today’s America where almost any animal can be considered an emotional support animal or ESA for short my little buddy still gets the attention of passers by when he is noticed. When we are not at home I leave the bottom button of my shirt open and Roudy climbs right in. In case you are wondering, I always wear a heavy tee shirt, even on the hottest days, because his little claws can really be attention getting.

It seems like Roudy has been my buddy forever but not so long at all. You see I had an accident a while ago and nearly lost my life, it was my fault, I stepped right out in front of that truck and well, suffice it to say, it hurt like hell. My wife was talking at the time and I was totally concentrating on trying to understand what she way was saying. No that most certainly does not make the accident her fault, she wasn’t even there and had absolutely no idea that I was in danger. she was on the phone and I was wearing my wireless earbuds. I never saw the truck and the driver was actually charged with speeding 40 in a 25 zone and my TV Lawyer got me a bundle from the trucking company.

I can’t hear worth a damn! Way too much very load music in my late teens and early twenty’s, I have been told. I don’t know that the music was to blame, I actually believe that my hearing was starting to go even those many years ago, which is why I loved the really loud stuff. I would go to a concert and try to find the seats that most people did not want, my favorite was ground level a bit back from the front row and directly in front of a speaker tower. Now I will tell you, that is really loud and I loved it, I became the music, jumping and swaying as if I could dance and completely loosing myself for an hour or so. This was truly my idea of heaven on earth.

Anyway, back to my buddy Roudy, I found out soon after my wife brought him to visit me in the hospital that he could talk to me. Yep, you read that right, Roudy can talk, he chooses to only talk where I can hear him and that is just fine with me. His “speaking” voice is quite high pitched and very quiet and seems to be a perfect fit for my hearing loss. He climbs up on my shoulder and licks or nibbles my earlobe and tells me what is being said he almost always gets it perfectly correct except when the conversation is about a big or mean dog and then my little buddy gets excited and leaves out words in favor of small barks and whimpers.

I can see your smile as you now relegate this old guy to a class of people who you would not like to babysit your little ones. But I am here to tell you it is not a fabrication and I did prove it to my wife when she kept giving me “that look” when she would ask if Roudy repeated her question for me?

You see, I love my ear buds, wear them almost all the time and I am a little bit of a tinkerer, so I rigged up a small, or maybe even tiny, I’m not so sure where the dividing line is for that size measurement. But I digress, please pardon, BTW, as I write this I am quietly mumbling about what I write and my buddy if laughing out loud at my silliness. Well, anyway, I had rigged up, at that time a tiny microphone transmitter which I carry in my shirt with my little buddy. Once I explained it workings to him he started lying by the mic and giving me that translation of what was going on around me. Wow, did that ever improve my life, I basically was able to drop “huh” from my vocabulary and soon folks just assumed that I was wearing a miniature hearing aid and just enjoyed me being once more in the conversation.

I kept telling my wonderful wife that Roudy was repeating what was said and she would just look at me a bit pathetic and change the subject. So, I rigged a recorder to the wireless link and was able to create a recording of what I was hearing Roudy say. When I played the first recording for my wife, her jaw dropped, the look in her eyes became one of astonished admiration as she looked at my little buddy and then she burst into robust and honest laughter as she said, “Your hearing aid has four legs!”

These days we just about completely forget about how I am able to hear and we both just enjoy our “what” free life. Every single day I hug my buddy, tell him how much I love him and would even if he was not my ears and I just hope that he outlives me.