Supersized

Seven thousand dollars. That’s what I paid today. If I was working at a local McDonald’s, that would represent 42% of my annual pay. Paid in one lump sum.

Did I buy a car? A boat? A trip to Europe?

Nope. I bought the ability to hear.

I bought the simple ability to hear. If I was working at McDonald’s, this would mean that I could mostly hear people when they place their orders, probably hear the boss telling me to wrap the burgers faster, but I still wouldn’t be able to hear folks coming through the drive-thru so don’t even think about handing me that headset. There is still a fair chance that men with deep voices may have to act out their orders. Think of it. Big Mac and fries and a vanilla shake conveyed in hand signals, body language, furious pointing. Fun.

There are 34 million people with significant hearing loss in the U.S. but insurance doesn’t cover the cost of hearing aids. Private insurance, public insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, none of them. Somehow, hearing aids are a luxury or cosmetic item, optional, like, gee, it would be swell to get hearing aids but meanwhile I’ll just go about my business not being able to hear a fucking thing and it will all be fine. It won’t be fine. Not if I’m trying to keep my job at McDonald’s and the boss is getting complaints from customers that I’m screwing up their orders.

At McDonald’s I am an expendable worker after all. There’s nothing special about me, no reason that co-workers or bosses would bend over backward to accommodate me, interpret the world for me, protect me from the aggravation and wrath of the misunderstood and impatient. No, my ass would get canned.

I say all this, why? Well, first of all, I’m on a personal campaign to educate people about hearing loss. And one thing people need to know is that dealing with it is an extremely expensive, cash and carry, proposition. So from the jump, if you’re not middle income or better when hearing loss strikes, you are just fucked. Sorry, but you should just go curl up and die somewhere. You are finished economically.

Second, I absolutely cannot understand and cannot abide people who are opposed to a significant increase in the minimum wage to a level that gives a McDonald’s worker a fighting chance to provide for herself and address uninsured health care needs, like hearing aids. Look at it this way, you pay me $15 and hour and maybe I have a prayer of pulling the money together to buy these hearing aids. You pay me $8 an hour and I can’t buy the hearing aids, can’t hear people on the job, I get canned, I’m then living under a bridge on the nights when I’m not staying in a homeless shelter paid for with public dollars.

There’s nothing unfair or unjust about my hearing loss. On any given day, I might run into a dozen people who have worse situations than me. But I will tell you, severe hearing loss is a major, major disability. There have been days when I’ve been convinced that I couldn’t work another single minute. Understanding colleagues, a good, long reputation, and a fair amount of personal grit (which come and goes) have kept me working so far. But I am protected. I’m protected by my education, my income, my partner. I’m privileged in that sense. I have hearing loss but really, the world is my crutch.

What’s unfair is that my level of hearing loss would put a low wage worker on the street.

And that’s not right. Think about that the next time the chick behind the counter asks you to repeat your order.