I have been shouting a lot lately.  Not because I am a brute or a bully or an offended narcissist, but because the hearing aid batteries seem to go dead every day.  Or the hearing aids are not being worn.  A person cannot wear hearing aids comfortably, of course, when mowing the lawn—such amplified sound would rattle their teeth and ruin what’s left of their hearing.  And there is the surgical mask, which, when removed, catches on the hearing aid and flings it across the church parking lot.  What an indignity to continually be shouted at, to have to ask “What?” and “Hmm?” all the time, to miss the happy songs of finches at sunset.