All on the same recent morning, the radiotelephone at the ranch failed and my left hearing aid crashed. Investigation is continuing into whether it might be connected to the infamous "I love you" virus. I was able to contact an employee in Mertzon right a way on a cell phone to report the outage. He was instructed to tell General Telephone, the local carrier, that my number was not in order. Also, I told him when he contacted repair to tell the clerk my left hearing aid was out, too.

At 9 a.m. the telephone came back on, but the hearing aid started making the same sound a kid makes sucking the last drops of Coke through a straw. At 9:30 a.m., the telephone company called to find out if my telephone was working. "Mr. Nolek*," she said, "is your telephone number nineonefive-threeninezerotwofourthreefour?" Stumped by the way she reeled off the numbers, I looked over in the open telephone book and read, "are you oneeighthundredfoureight threeonethousand? If so, this call may be monitored by my supervisor and the Attorney General of the State of Texas." (* Nolekshould be my stage name, as people are always pronouncing Noelke that way. A nolek is a smut-colored tropical fish that rarely ever contacts telephone employees.)

After a silence, she said, "Mr. Nolek, your call is being forwarded to my supervisor." In a few minutes, a very brisk voice came on apologizing for the misunderstanding. I accepted her apology. Told her I needed to know whether the telephone company knew yet if my telephone going out coinciding with my left hearing aid crashing was connected to the "I love you" virus over the Internet. Her manner changed after I explained the ranch was not on-line. Not a perceptible brushoff, yet a message the file was closing. She ended the call, promising to look into the matter.

Without knowing the peculiarities of my hearing aid, the telephone company can't evaluate the problem. As I reported once before, on muggy days, my hearing aids pick up the cattle market at Guymon, Oklahoma off a satellite. Engineers responsible for the aerial at the ranch ask us to report any trouble on the new system. I took being a test case serious after learning the hookup cost 8000 bucks. If I withhold information about the technology of having a satellite phone in a remote place, receiving through a hearing aid, I am no better than the hackers trying to destroy communications.

Wearing hearing aids causes lots of other complications. The other night at the box office at a play in Houston, a young girl kept repeating over and over a litany I thought might be about releasing the theater of liability, but all I heard was a mewing sound. Finally, the guy behind punched me in the back and said,"Tell her you can't hear well enough to be shocked by offensive language, so the line can move on, bud."

Next morning the hotel clerk became so annoyed at having to repeat directions to the art museum, I jerked out a hearing aid and said, "Hon, speak into this and I'll stick it back in my ear real fast to catch your words." She whipped a map from a drawer and drew the way in deep black colored pencil. At lunch, I tried to catch her eye, but she'd had more of a test on the morning shift than she'd ever been tested at hotel training school.

The Mertzon post office is sympathetic toward deaf people. A sign in the lobby reads, "No dogs permitted in the building except for blind and deaf patrons." At the last mail run, I forewarned the clerk that I was going to train a hearing dog to listen for the tumblers falling on the lock to my post box by making a can opener for dog food give the sound of the ratcheting of a lock mechanism. (See "Stob" Crowell's book, "The Training Of Backdoor And Mattress Dogs.") She needed to be warned, as she might think the sounds were a thief drilling a box open.

The head of City of Mertzon Animal Apprehension Department, (A.A.D.) or the town dogcatcher, is an old pal of mine. He already has prospects in mind. He thinks one of those little short-eared looking mutts will make a better hearing dog than the larger flop-eared bassets or Walker hounds. The problem is the same as working in the human sphere. Lots of dogs can hear, but not many are willing to listen.

Looks like the case is going to die on linking the virus to my telephone and hearing aid. Next time the telephone company asks for my cooperation, they are going to have to research my problems to win me back. The play in Houston, by the way, contained lots of offensive features, including the language.

June 1, 2000