Thursday, October 1, 2009

Things I Have Always Wondered About …

… but that I never had guts to try, or only heard stories from friends of friends about it happening to include blowing up hearing aid batteries.

You read that right – blowing up hearing aid batteries.

I think every hearing aid wearer (albeit in my case, a very brief career) at one point in our lives heard the story of the blowing up of the batteries and in my case, and I’m sure many others, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to see one of them blow up.

I got the opportunity to do so last night. I was on night duty, walking around campus, and shooing all the younger kids back to the dorms when one boy hid his dead hearing aid battery, and then tossed it in a fire. Needless to say, that drew quite a crowd of kids toward the fire, and sprayed some dazzling sparks.

Secretly delighted by the show, I gave the kids a lecture about safety (but seriously – I’m not even going into the whole safety thing here – its just too big), and then again this morning during morning assembly, I stressed the importance of appropriately disposing of the batteries.

Last night, after the whole shebang (pun totally intended), I was talking with a hearing aids wearer online, and this is our conversation, slightly paraphrasing (as this is from memory).

“This kid threw his dead hearing aid battery into the fire.”
“Did it blow up?”
“Yep.”
“Cool! I need to try that!”

Beware anyone who decide to try and cross the Deaf community – we’re armed with hearing aids batteries!

DISCLAIMER

This blog consists of my personal thoughts and opinions. It does not in any way reflect the position of the United States Government or the Peace Corps.