Do you hear bells? I do...and, as much as I like all of you, I don't think it's love. As I've whined about before in this space, I have a little bit of tinnitus. That means having extraneous noise in your head. In my case, due to all the empty space up there, it echoes. There are lots of possible causes for this stuff. For example, not getting enough sleep can exacerbate the condition. (When I call it a "condition" it makes it sound much more important...like maybe I can get on Dr. Phil and talk about my "Battle With My CONDITION!") Also, putting foreign objects in your ears can be a potential cause. I know what you're thinking: Well, that explains Joel's problem because he probably sticks beans in his ears. HA! I don't do that...anymore. But, there is a foreign object in my left ear most days of the week. It is called an IFB which stands for Interruptible Fold-Back or Feed-Back, depending on which text-book you look at or grizzled broadcast engineer you talk to. It's the little ear-piece through which the newscast producer and/or director can communicate with the on-air person. For newspeople, it is a way to be told about breaking news or timing issues. In my case, I usually hear nothing with the exception of the occasional dejected sigh as I torpedo yet another carefully crafted program. Every now and then, the producer or director will say "Joel. Please. Wind it up/Out of time/Gotta go/SHUT UP!" The command varies depending upon how disastrous my weathercast has been. It's a sliding scale. I don't really mind the IFB. Now, when people tell me to "Stick it in your ear" I just assume they mean the IFB. Coincidentally, in high school, I was chosen most likely to be pursued by the FBI. Maybe our yearbook editor was dyslexic.

I like to think that it is the combination of a lack of solid sack-time and wearing the ear deal for over 20 years that has me hearing things. But, there is another possible reason. WARNING: THE NEXT PART OF THIS BLOGITANY IS NOT ONLY THE USUAL WASTE OF YOUR TIME BUT IT IS ALSO A LITTLE GROSS. The other reason could be excessive ear wax. That's what the medical books say. I think I have pretty good ear hygiene, although, whenever we visit one of those historic reenactment villages, the woman making candles does try to stab me with a wick. Frankly, I'm nervous about getting the canal cleaning. I'm just not sure I want to hear everything being said around me. Whatever the reasons, I do hear things. In my case, the tinnitus presents itself (WOW! That sounded like something Chad Everett would've said on Medical Center!) with a cacophony of sounds including a whooshing. Sometimes that particular noise is so pronounced that the kids will press their ears to my mouth just to hear the ocean. The whoosh was so loud one time that Nike sued me for copyright infringement. This sound of rushing water has me constantly asking everyone in the house to double check the faucets and toilets.

Less prominent for me is the "ringing" that many tinnitusians deal with. The word, tinnitus, comes from the Latin root meaning, just that, ringing. The literal translation was "Et tu, Brutus? Can someone please pick up that phone?" Lots of famous folks have this situation including William Shatner. It may explain his celebrated delivery which is studded with so many dramatic pauses. He keeps hesitating when he thinks he hears his phone. "The...Klingons....have....taken....control....of my....caller ID, Spock!" Frankly, I don't think I'd mind the ringing. It would remind me of simpler times when a phone sounded like a phone.

Nowadays, phones sound like someone being put into Captain Kirk's transporter and sent down to the surface of Cubic Zirconium Alpha or some such place. Phones don't ring. They beep or chirp or trill like a meadowlark hopped up on highly-caffeinated earthworms. Cell phones are even worse. They play classical music as performed by Alvin and the Chipmunk Philharmonic. Of course, you can get a ring-tone that is a real song. For example, our daughter, Samantha, the duchess of downloads, has Bobby Darin singing Mack The Knife for her incoming calls ring-tone and Dean Martin crooning Everybody Loves Somebody for texts. I think she has several other tunes on her phone for other functions. She even helped me load Merle Haggard's Mama Tried for my ringer because she felt the song was appropriate for me, in that it fully exonerates my mother (Samantha's beloved grandma ) for how I've turned out. My wife has Jingle Bells for her holiday ring-tone but most of the year she uses a sound that is like one of those old-fashioned slide whistles. Every time her phone goes off I expect Benny Hill to run through the living room with his pants around his ankles.

In some ways, I'd like to have our home phone set with different rings depending on who is calling. For example, when folks wanting money call, it would ring at a higher pitch for the higher debt. The lower the bill, the lower the notes, the more likely I would be to answer. Maybe a song like Too Much Month At The End Of The Money, would be fitting.

To be completely honest, not easy for a weatherman, I miss the old phones. The ones with the comforting sound of a rotary dial. The ones firmly attached to the wall with a hand-held deal to listen from and talk into. The ones that were always in the same spot and didn't require you play the "hot/cold" game every time it rang. The ones that sounded like phones when they rang! The fact that you can carry your phone with you at all times makes certain things impossible. You really can't hardly claim to have "just missed your call" when trying to avoid people anymore. Where would Lily Tomlin's Ernestine the Operator be today with no "One Ringy Dingy. Two Ringy Dingy?" Also, a great joke once played on my mom would be unlikely now. I may have already mentioned this in an earlier entry but it's worth a repeat. (I'm on TV and it's summer so repeats are standard operating procedure.) My mom was outside washing the windows on the front of our house back in the old neighborhood. She was near the top of the ladder when she heard the phone ring. She climbed down and hurried inside but didn't make it before the caller hung up. So, back out and up she went. Just as she got to the top of the ladder, the phone rang again. Back down the ladder. Back in the house. Too late, again. So, she went back to her chore. Up the ladder. She had just started to scrub when, you guessed it, the phone! This time she really got a move on. Practically jumping down from the ladder. Zooming up the front steps. Crashing through the door. Lunging for the still ringing phone. "HELLO!" she shouted just in time to hear the click of a phone being hung up. She went back outside and climbed the ladder. From across the street she heard our neighbor, Barney, come out on his front steps and holler over to her "Why don't you answer your phone?" Barney had orchestrated the entire episode from his kitchen table just for his own amusement. Now, that whole scenario would not have been possible if my mom had the phone in her back pocket.

Another thing about the new-fangled phones: It has caused great consternation in the Mime community. When you are miming the act of making or receiving a call, is it still acceptable to hold your hand with your thumb and pinky extended as if holding an old-fashioned phone or do you have to sort of cup your hand, thumb on one side and four fingers on the other, to mimic today's deal? It's a dilemma.

Apparently, you can download a ring-tone that sounds like an old phone actually ringing. Retro ringing. I am officially old, now, that the ring I grew up with is considered nostalgic. It wasn't enough that the so-called "oldies" station in town is playing songs from my adulthood. Now, my whole previous life is like a travelling history exhibit from the Smithsonian.

Anyway, to answer the question posed at the start: Yes, I hear bells...and water whooshing....and assorted other clangs, tweets, buzzes, beeps, barks, quacks and snorts. The trouble is I can't always tell if this onomatopoeia opera is coming from a phone or just inside my noisy noodle. Either way, I'm not going to answer.