Selective Hearing Syndrome

I am stern believer that all females have this gene in their head that causes them to filter out everything but what they want to hear. This is erroneously been considered a male trait, but research has proven that the opposite is true. While the degree of the filtration may vary, make no mistake it is there. It is called Selective Hearing Syndrome* and may seem something like this.

While the man may say something like...

"I'll be so happy when I am done fixing this van. It seems all that belt wants to do is rub against the edge until it breaks. This will be the last time I let your mom drive it - I've been on my feet all freakin' day!"

What the most severe cases of Selective Hearing Syndrome actually hears is something like this...

"I'll be so happy when I am done fixing this van. It seems all that belt wants to do is rub against the edge until it breaks. This will be the last time I let your mom drive it - I've been on my feet all freakin' day!"

So you can imagine the confused look on the poor man's face that night when his significant other is expecting a full fledged foot massage and he has no clue what the hell she is talking about.

And they think WE don't listen. Bah!

There is no age limitations to SHS as even the youngest of children have shown increased levels of this ailment. This is much different than the complete lack of hearing that some children show, but rather the bits and pieces the child CHOOSES to hear.

Saturday the Family Grimm stopped off at Best Buy to look over the possible choices for Leslie's new camera. While she perused the selection, Julia and I took a tour of the store. We saw the big screen TV's, we saw the expensive sound systems - and we saw the Guitar Hero display, complete with full drum set, microphone and a big screen to watch it on.

Julia is slowly becoming a Guitar Hero prodigy (she gets it from her mother, not me), so when she saw this display she immediately wanted to try all of the new stuff out. Normally I would let her show off her mad skills, but this evening there was a line of teenagers waiting to try it out so I to her:

"Honey, we're not going to be able to play this today. Maybe we will let pick one up later on for Mommy's birthday (in June) and play it then."

That night, as Julia was getting ready for bed, she asked me if I was ready to try that Guitar Hero game out now. I told her it was bedtime, but she insisted - "You said later...."

She is soooo her mother.

* - This is not to be confused with the males ability to turn off his hearing during televised sporting events and anything that involves bikinis and running. This is a special talent us men have and should not be considered negative in any way.