Sometimes it's hard having a superpower.. You know?

It turns out that I have bionic hearing. Of all the superpowers one could acquire, this wouldn't be my first pick, but then one rarely chooses these things as he is being bitten by a radio active spider, as he is careening from his destroyed planet into a farm field in his infant sized space ship, or as he is being genetically modified into a weapon of mass destruction by the military who (generally) underestimates a person's emotional yearnings to do the right thing. Not that any of that happened to me. I don't think.

But I do have strong hearing as evidenced by the fact that I get angry when certain members of my household breathe too loudly. I try not to react when the person next to me sounds like the space shuttle throttling as he casually watches a movie turned up so loud that the Branch Davidians feel nervous. That confrontation always ends poorly, with a snippy comment by the breather that goes, "You seriously want me to die, don't you. Sorry I have to breathe in your space to survive."

Because of my extraordinary (ahem) gift, life can be fairly miserable. I can hear every conversation in my classroom and have to pretend not to hear most of them since some of them could ruin a person's faith in humanity. I hear every slight move the baby makes over the monitor. It wakes me up at night and I have to make sure he is Okay, even though I know that he probably just slightly moved his hand. Also, I hear a horrifically high pitched shrieking that comes from our cable box. So much so that I sometimes can't be in the same room with the TV.

And the last sound is a particular bitch.

We had satellite up until a month ago when fate would send a cable representative up our drive. Rich, in his usual hospitable manner, invited the guy in, made him a cup of cocoa, and asked him if he'd like to build a fort in the living room with the couch cushions and play Wii Mario Cart. Or that's how it sometimes happens in my mind when we invite a salesman into our house. It's always bad news because we "befriend" the person and feel obligated to buy whatever it is that he's selling. That's how we ended up with the most worthless vacuum known to man and a subscription to Cruising World Magazine.

Needless to say, we got cable and bundled some stuff, or something.

The problem was the cable box screamed. Loudly. Sometimes even Rich could hear it.

After the first week of enduring the sound, I demanded that Rich call the cable company. They remarked that sometimes the boxes squeal a little when the DVR is working and that they would come out and fix it right now. They did. I hardly had time to drag a comb through my hair when the man showed up with a shiny new cable box. And I was impressed. Until the shiny new box began squealing, too.

Once again we called. This time, At&t (the phone company/cable supplier) hung up on us twice and on the third attempt told us they would send someone between 12 noon and 4pm the following day. I tried not to be too snarky about the fact that noon to 4 is when all of the cool stuff happens in a day. I'm not sure exactly what, but I do know that I was most inconvenienced. And it was, after all, my fault, I suppose, that my super bionic military infused hearing from another planet was picking up the sound. I had already been a pain, and I was trying not to push it.

So we waited. Patiently. From 12 noon to 4pm. No calls. No doorbells. No new cable box.

Annoyed, Rich called again. They "checked on his account" for 20 minutes, and while doing so, hung up. We hung our heads, defeated.

As life moves along in it's own special time, or two hours later in this case, I forgot to be mad about the cable box. We were having dinner guests over to celebrate Christmas before all of us succumbed to family visits and the usual "holiday cheer". Around the time that the fist guest arrived, the phone, which hadn't rung all day, rang.

Me: "Hello?"

Him: "Yeah. This is Dennis. From At&t. I have a work order for you."

Me: (Annoyed)"Um. You guys were supposed to be here from noon to fou.."

Him: (Also annoyed and cutting me off)"Yeah and I just got the order."

Clearly he was having a bad day, so I tried to soften my tone.

Me: "Okay. Where are you, Dennis?"

Him: "Close."

Me: "Okay. But we're having a dinner party. I suppose you are welcome to come on in and install the new box.. and if you're hungry, there's plenty of spaghetti. Do you like spaghetti?"

Him: "Uh. Well. (sigh) Um. It's OK about the dinner part, but I'll come and install the box."

Me: "Okay. See you soon, Dennis."

And we disconnected.

The dinner guests arrived. And so did Dennis. He began installing the new box as we were toasting our evening. I again offered some dinner to Dennis, who was clearly amused at the proposition, and as the evening went on, I occasionally looked around dinner guest Jamie who was sitting directly across from me and who silently snickered with me, to check on Dennis. He was fine, his blue tooth ear piece blinking with importance. And we ate. And he watched.

Rich eventually showed Dennis out, inviting him back later for fort building, and everyone seemed content or at least amused.

That is until I was up with the baby in the middle of the night. While walking through the living room I sighed to myself, "Well. At least this one doesn't scream as loudly as the previous two." And I wasn't talking about the baby.