Feaverish

I think of all the senses, hearing would be near the top of my “Do Not Lose” list. Obviously sight’s the big one, right? Sight would have to be the last to go. But smell? Meh. If you’ve ever taken an afternoon visit to my company’s bathroom on Pink-Chickenââ�¬â��Chili Fridays you’d be willing to live without smell.

Losing your sense of taste would be horrible, but you’d probably just be like “Well, at least I can still see.” Sense of touch? Hmm. Are we talking full paralysis here? Or like you can still move but just not really feel anything? Like mostly numb? ‘Cause that might not be so bad.

With touch I think we notice the negative experiences more than the positive. I mean, how many things can you think of that feel good? Relations amoureuse (as I imagine someone from France might say)? Naturally. What else? Monkey back rubs come to mind (as recipient only! Nothing chafes the thumbs worse than coarse monkey flesh), as does the splintering give of safety glass when the car that just cut you off gets your bike’s U-Lock hammered righteously and repeatedly into its windshield. Most of the time, though, we just feel, well, nothingââ�¬â��neither good nor badââ�¬â��and only notice our sense of touch when stubbing our toe or catching a watermelon in the groin.

What I like about hearing is how it’s automatically selective. Like, how you can tune out familiar sounds, but still rely on your ears to alert you when something goes wrong. Think of your humming refrigerator. You never notice the hum, but you’d notice if it stopped. The same goes for an airplane’s engines, or, as I experienced a few minutes ago, the splash of urine in a toilet bowl. Evidently I’ve been subconsciously trained to expect the sound without ever consciously listening to it, since I noticed, after peeing for a few seconds, that my stream was not making its customary splashing noises, and was instead being blocked byââ�¬â��and thoroughly soakingââ�¬â��my apparently too-long shirt front.