Hearing Impairment and My Airport Adventure

As most people are aware, anytime one travels and they decide to fly, the airport always seems to awaken a bit of anxiety inside of most people. Most boarding pass areas are all self-serve now, leaving an inexperienced flyer stumbling at the kiosk trying to figure out how in the world to get their boarding passes printed. Then comes the challenge of attaching the luggage sticker correctly to your luggage.  How can something so simple be such a bit of a challenge for me?

So, let the anxiety begin. I remember in my younger years, flying in an airport was actually not very complicated at all. Fast forward to today, and especially after 9-11, you are now faced with many areas that may cause unwanted stress, especially if you are hearing impaired like I am. Like  the fun adventure of getting thru the security checkpoint.

Once I get to the security moving belt area, I place my carry-ons, Laptop and my phone in individual trays. I wait for the TSA official to wave me on to the standing body scanner. I go inside. He says something to me, which of course I don’t hear. He tells me again louder to take what is in my back pocket out. I take it out. He mumbles something again. By this time, I’m a little perturbed because I am over people whose job is to correspond with the general public but their mumbling or talking low prevents people like me from hearing it.  I finally point to my ears, and I tell him in a slightly irritated voice “I am hearing impaired – I wear hearing aids, but I still need you to talk a little louder”. He acted irritated towards me right back, but at this time I really don’t care. He was telling me to hold the contents of my back pocket in the air as I stand inside the scanner …Yay.  I finally got that one figured out.

Now its onward and upward, right? Let’s get to the proper gate and not move until our flight boards. We get to the gate and chill out a little while the times slowly ticks by. Finally, I hear some announcements. Sounds like something about our flight. I ask my husband who can hear perfect what was said, and he repeats what was said. I sit there for about 5 more minutes and there’s another announcement. It has static, is fuzzy and totally not understandable to me at all. Luckily my husband repeats what is announced again, but I can’t imagine being at this airport without the help of his interpretations. You would think that the airport would devise an announcement center where all announcements would be like closed captioning along the wall or ceiling or something like that.

We finally board the airplane and get in our seats. By this time, I just want to block out all the people’s noise and relax for the next hour and a half that I am on my flight. But, as to be expected, there is that last little jab for all hearing-impaired people: The captain’s announcement. This time I understood a few of the words said, but the rest were just lost in translation……I really hope it wasn’t important. And the thing is my husband didn’t even understand what the captain said, and his hearing is perfect.

I am really glad I don’t fly a lot.

One last thing that just bugs me and this has nothing to do with hearing impairment. Why is it that once the plane lands, everyone thinks they should stand up in eager anticipation to get off the plane. Heck, they haven’t even connected the walkway to the airplane door yet.  It cracks me up just watching the impatience on these peoples faces.  I know I am staying seated, and I know once the aisle starts moving, then I will stand up and get out of my seat. Until then, I’m staying seated.