WHAT? So I am driving to work this morning in my luxurious 1992 Isuzu pickup with the cheap stereo that only plays through one speaker, listening to KCBI, when a weird thing begins to happen. I hit a bump and the other speaker kicked in. I had never heard it before. It has never worked. It was like having your ears clear when you have a cold or allergy. It was unnerving. I could not decide if I liked it better than the old mono sound or not.

Then, after a few minutes, the speaker died out again and that old, comfortable, tinny, mono sound returned. I drove in peace for a while, then hit another bump. Poof! The speaker came on again, plunging me into stereo. Then, after a minute, the speaker again died. It was so weird.

I’m glad that, when you go deaf, it happens gradually, and does not cut in and out. Wouldn’t that be awful? One minute you can’t hear your wife talking to you, and one minute you can. Oh, wait a minute. Uh oh.