Reader's Digest Oct/Nov

It’s a peculiar noise, like the sound of a thief siphoning fuel from a car. Not that solid food is much better. I’m surprised by howmany people eat with their mouth open. The visuals in- volved are not great, but the audio is worse. The mouth, open wide, serves as a sort of trumpet, broadcasting the sound of wet chewing. This symphony of eating can now be experienced everywhere you go. As you wait to cross the street, your fellow pedestrians are like lions at the zoo. They attack their food as if it were trying to escape. Liquids, meanwhile, are slurped upwards, by means of a straw, in an aural rep- resentation of the challenges posed by gravity. It’s the same at the movies. I love watching them on the big screen, but how strange that bombs can be ex- ploding and planes crashing, yet the most piercing noise is coming from the guy in row 12 chewing popcorn. I know I shouldn’t criticise others; I have my own flaws. As an anxious fellow, I grind my teeth all night long. Now I have hardly any teeth left – or anyone willing to share a bed with me. At one stage, the dentist insist- ed that I sleep with a plastic mouth guard that, when slipped onto my teeth, made a sound so revolting that it caused the rapid departure of my fellow bed user and wife, Jocasta. Removing the device also made a stomach-churning sound, reminis- cent of a rubber boot being pulled from mud. Sssshloomp. Jocasta, should she have returned to bed, would flee once more. And then there’s ice. After finish- ing a gin and tonic, I enjoy crunch- ing on the cubes at the bottom of the glass with the few good teeth I have left. This has an electrifying effect on Jocasta: once again, she leaps up and runs for her life, as you might from a fire. I have so many bad habits, but this is the one she judges the worst. “It gives me shooting pains in my teeth,” she says. “I imagine what it would be like if I did it myself. It makes me shudder. It really is so disgusting.” Maybe, like Cate Blanchett’s Lydia Tár, she suffers from misophonia. Are there pleasant noises? Of course. I love listening to the sounds my dog Clancy lets out when he’s dreaming, his tiny squeaks of excite- ment as he chases some imaginary rabbit in some imaginary field. There are others: food sizzling on the bar- becue or waves crashing rhythmi- cally onto the shore on a visit to the beach. Yet, it’s the painful sounds that stay with us: a knife squealing on a dinner plate, a colleague whistling tunelessly or a neighbour who loud- ly revs his car engine as he sets off to work at 6.15am. He can roar all he likes – it doesn’t bot her me. Over t he sound of my grinding teeth, I can’t hear him at all. rdasia.com 19 Humour