Super Bowl Party and Deaf Guests in Denial - Help Me!

The Super Bowl countdown is in its final week. Rachael Ray and every other cooking program have been pushing Super Bowl menus at us for weeks. Wide-screen television and home theater systems are at their best sales. It is all racing to the exciting “Day of Days” for pro football fans: Super Bowl Sunday.

Many of us will be either hosting or attending a Party devoted to watching the game. This social event is welcome for many reasons in addition to deciding what team will earn the champion status for a year. We expect the foods to be scrumptious. Usually the offerings are expected to be meaty, fatty, salty and “manly” (as if being masculine means being un-heart-healthy.) But, they are a nice vacation from our usual diets. Game watchers get to shout and carry on as if they were five-year-olds. That part is a vacation from being grown-up. In the United States, advertising campaigns are launched during the hours of the game broadcast. Brilliantly clever commercials are debuted and we all comment on the best ones. Furthermore, small household pets are showcased in rescue dog and cat mock Super Bowl spots which are dear and entertaining. Then, if one is a half-time show lover, there is usually some sort of silly laser-light entertainment in the middle.

This year I have seen excellent suggestions for party hosts who want to meet the needs of the true blue, die hard, non-chit-chatting football fans. The best idea is to have one television set up in a room for those guests who are not very knowledgeable about the game and are more interested in gabbing and snacking. Then, have a television in a separate room for the “serious” football dudes who can munch and shout and say “Did you SEE THAT?” to each other without suffering the foolishness of the other guests.

Well, this is all well and good if the host has multiple rooms and multiple TVs. However, let us assume that there will be only one viewing and eating room. Here is my question:

Being in denial means refusing to admit that a situation exists. Many oldsters who have begun to lose hearing are in denial. They do not want to admit that they are aging. They do not want to acknowledge that they have started losing abilities. Thus, these people DO NOT get themselves a hearing aid. Of course, it seems that all those I know who are in this boat have no shyness about asking to have the television volume turned louder – at the expense of the rest of us. (Let’s just ruin my hearing, why not?) So, what do you suggest?

If the television volume is geared for “normal” folks, this guest misses remarks made by the television commentators. As the rest of the guests react, time must be taken to repeat and explain to the deaf person…thus making more people miss more things said.

I attended a party at which the deaf-ish guest had a set of earphones to hear the television set better (this was a sort of substitute for a hearing aid – in effect, it was a televisiononly hearing aid.) Sadly, the headphones blocked out any other sounds in the room, so he could not hear the jokes and comments being made by the other guests. This again led to the need for statements to be repeated and more comments missed.

So, other than (

a) not letting these people go to Super Bowl parties, or

(b) kidnapping these blokes several weeks beforehand and forcing them to get a hearing aid,

WHAT can be done?

Text copyright 2012 Maren Morgan