A few weeks ago, on holiday in Sharm, I learnt to scuba dive. I'd very much like to do it again, although after the first open water dive down to 18m in the Red Sea, we surfaced and climbed back ashore and I realised the instructor's lips were moving but I couldn't hear a thing he was saying. Or anything else, for that matter.
Oddly, my immediate reaction wasn't any real concern, but a profound feeling of peace.
"Swimmers ear" apparently. A build up of wax compressed by water-pressure up against the ear drum and blocking the ear canal. It did clear up, but not a lot, so for some weeks after I had to manage with considerably diminished hearing whilst I loaded my ears up with sterilised olive oil to loosen things and sought an appointment with a man that could fix it.
Which I duly did, and Tony Lawrence of Gloucester Ear Health Clinic made a fantastic, enthusiastic and cheerful job of the somewhat gruesome task of removing the wax from my ears.
I can hear again. Peace may be lost once more, but practicality outweighs the disturbance.
We concluded with a hearing test which, as expected, showed some significant "age related" degradation in my hearing around the higher frequencies. Aggravated, without a doubt, by the environment I work in.
We discussed the possibility of looking into hearing aids, but as those higher frequencies are mostly the register of my wife's voice, I figured we were so far managing to get along just fine as we were. We did agree I should be using ear plugs when performing with the band, however.
I did have some, but lent them to Dad at a gig after he'd forgotten his own, and never got them back.
I did some digging around on Google and concluded the best option was to buy a set of Alpine MusicSafe Pro High Fidelity Music Earplugs. Reasonably priced, recommended by the Internet hive mind, they came with three options of filter, of which the medium "silver" set would likely be the most useful to me as a vocalist and guitarist.
Unfortunately, when the arrived Saturday morning it was apparent that they'd sent me a package with only one of the medium filters, and and extra light filter. I followed the breadcrumb trail through Amazon's customer support, to find myself directed to the manufacturer, so emailed them.
I received a prompt and courteous email in reply essentially saying that as I'd bought through Amazon, I had to go back to them.
This I tried this morning, being the first time since Saturday I've really been back in front of a screen. I spent about an hour being quizzed by AI bots and directed down various rabbit holes, all of which seemed to end with just the option to return the product, which aside from the inconvenience for something that only cost a shade over £20, was probably now inappropriate, as I'd tried using them with the strong filter version on Saturday night.
Which felt a bit like singing under water, so I gave up on them and removed them for the second set.
I guess this is the peril and inconvenience of buys something online. On the other hand, it's terribly convenient to buy a different set of ear plugs in time for next weekend's gigs. But I feel somewhat disinclined to buy them from Alpine again.
Although I should say that their own customer service has been nothing but prompt and courteous.
But that's the trouble, I wanted something more than prompt and courteous. I wanted the problem resolved quickly and with minimal fuss. Just put a missing filter in the post. For the mere cost of a stamp the goodwill generated would have been significant and enduring.
I suppose the moral of the story is don't leave your customer service to a company like Amazon.
The photos are from my holiday in Sharm, most taken by a lovely guy and fellow diver called Mahmoud. There are only so many photos of ear plugs one can put in a post before the subject matter becomes a little tedious.
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