Anne Palumbo: When ears are up to no good

Once again, I find myself stepping outside the box of conventional thinking and disagreeing with authorities.

Yes, it's exhausting, but someone's got to stir things up on the prairie.

The authorities I'm disagreeing with are the Relationship Experts who say why we married people get huffy with one another. According to them, the number one "marriage-strainer" is money.

To that I say: Ha!

While "spending differences" are certainly a force to reckon with, I don't think they're the primo reason we married folk snap at each other like rabid dogs. No, I say we get all rashy over a seldom-discussed factor called "ear infidelity" - also known as, "selective hearing."

I SAID: SELECTIVE HEARING!

If you are married, then you know what I'm talking about. Boy, oh boy, oh boy, do you know what I'm talking about! I mean, er, you probably have a hunch. But if you are not yet married, then let me give you a definition:

selective hearing n 1: the act of hearing only what you want to hear 2: the act of tuning someone out 3: faked hearing loss 4: an act that warrants cruel and unusual punishment

Although I don't really know which sex practices selecting hearing more - and would never, ever venture a guess (are you kidding?!) - I would have to say it's not women.

I SAID: IT'S NOT WOMEN!

Ouch! Did someone just slap my head with a rolled-up newspaper? Listen, don't take it out on me. For all I know, you heard: IT'S WOMEN.

There's a reason why I declared men the winner of the Selective Hearing Contest - and it has nothing to do with me and my marriage and the way I feel when no one seems interested in hearing about, say, my ingenious plot to rid the world of mosquitoes. It has to do with the recently unveiled facts that (1) men only listen with half their brain, and (2) men automatically tune out voices with a higher pitch.

Put those two facts together and what have you got? A person destined for the doghouse! No, I mean, you have an individual biologically predisposed to selective hearing.

Be that as it may, I confess to engaging in selective hearing myself, especially as it relates to "faked hearing loss." I practice it when I am in one room and someone is calling my name from another room, perhaps shouting a question my way, maybe hollering for me to bring something edible from the kitchen. Whatever the request, if the act of moving my parked carcass is too daunting a task, well, I go deaf. Okay? I figure, if it's important enough, the shouter will come my merry way.

But I don't practice it a lot. I don't like to play "ear games" - and, plus, I know what a downer it is not to feel heard.

I SAID: IT'S A DOWNER NOT TO GET YER VITTLES!

I do not, however, engage in selective hearing as it relates to "hearing what I only want to hear." Honestly, the concept confounds me. If someone says, "We need to weed the garden" - that's what I hear. I do not hear, "Let's snap each other with wet towels."

And I don't get "tuning someone out" either. If someone is talking to me, by golly, I pay attention for as long as my eyelids will stay open.

My point is, selective hearing can wreak havoc within a marriage, and we need to knock it off, whether we are biologically prone to the condition or not.

I SAID: FAULTY BRAIN WIRING DOES NOT LET YOU OFF THE HOOK!

Ouch! Did someone just swat my head again?

Anne Palumbo writes this weekly column for Messenger Post Newspapers. E-mail: avpalumbo@aol.com.