The Intruders

by Madeleine Kando

I sometimes envy my mother. She is as deaf as a doornail, but what do you expect at her age? She is going to be 103 in a few months. At least she has a permanent acoustic guard on duty, although barring entrance to any sound might be too much of a good thing. It’s different for me. Short of wearing earplugs or buying an expensive noise-cancelling headset, I am exposed to all sorts of unwelcome acoustic intruders.

Noises are part of living, you’ll say and suggest I see a shrink instead of waste your time writing about my predicament. You might conclude that I am suffering from ‘misophonia’**, the hatred of sound. But I am not averse to sounds in general; I forgive sounds that cannot help being sounds, like the sound of traffic, or police sirens. And I couldn’t live without music.

What drives me crazy are people with loud voices. They are the acoustic bullies of the world, the ones that always sit a few rows behind you on a 12-hour flight. You only hear their side of a conversation, as if they were talking to themselves. They completely lack self-awareness, misinterpreting the dirty looks that come their way for fascination with the infinite wisdom of their words.

How do they get to be such loudmouths? Were they raised in a large family where they needed to vie for parental attention by screaming louder than their siblings? Do they live with an acoustically challenged partner, or are they just enamored with the sound of their own voice?

I am on the opposite side of the spectrum with my soft, unobtrusive voice. It does have its advantages though, when most people cannot hear what you say; they tend to agree with you out of politeness.

Unwelcome sounds are not the only assault on my senses. Nobody likes the smell of b.o. or sewage, but if you are particularly sensitive to odors, an olfactory on/off switch would come in really handy.

I don’t really mind the smell of manure or even gas fumes. It’s not the cow’s fault that she has to eat so much to feed us all, or the poor car’s faulty design. They are just as much the victim as I am. It’s the olfactory bullies that I have a problem with, the smokers who expect you to enjoy secondary smoke. The co-worker who hasn’t taken a shower before showing up for work. And especially the odor impaired ‘anosmiacs’. My husband is a bit of an ‘anosmiac’. He tells me that I am imagining things when the litter box hasn’t been changed for a week and is surprised when his coffee curdles, although I told him about the sour milk in the fridge.

The fear of being touched is also familiar to me. Ok, I admit I might have a slight touch of Haphephobia. When someone steps over the threshold of my personal space I develop all the symptoms of a ‘fight or flight’ response: heart palpitations, sweating, clenched fists.. I start leaning back at the waist as far as my spine will allow, anything to maintain that sacred distance.

Scopophobia is a fear of being seen or stared at, but there is no word for the fear of 'seeing' (video phobia?). Wouldn’t it be great if we could wear blinders, like horses? I hear that ultra-Orthodox men in Israel can buy special blinders to prevent sin-enticing images from sneaking into their peripheral vision. I wouldn’t mind having a pair of those, to prevent me from seeing all the clutter in my house. I hate to admit it, but cleaning up is not one of my strong qualities.

An intrusion on my sense of taste doesn’t worry me that much. Although the food industry has done a fantastic job at bullying our taste buds with all their additives and advertising, when push comes to shove, it still requires prying open someone’s jaws to make them taste something against their will.

So the next time you see someone walk down the street in a plastic bubble, with a set of noise cancelling headphones and anti-ogle goggles, it’ll probably be me, promoting my new fashion line called ‘sensory overload protection’. leave comment here

** See Tom's entertaining post on 'phobias'.