You get used to stick insects
Feb. 10th, 2026 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseThere is nothing actually wrong with my hearing, as such. In fact, it's still surprisingly good for my age. If there is no background noise I can hear things you'd never expect me to be able to hear at all, and I can also still hear much higher frequencies than you'd expect. But I have, and always have had, extreme difficulty filtering out sounds from a lot of competing background; and that's clearly not a hearing thing at all. That's a brain wiring thing. It's one of the reasons I will no longer set wheel in the one local pub we have so far in this town; they insist on playing pop music, which I don't like in the first place, but if they turned it down a bit at least I might be able to tune it out so I could have a conversation. As it is, I really struggle to hear over it, which most other people don't seem to. (The other reason I won't go in there is they do about the fourth worst coffee I've ever tasted, and, not only that, but they serve it in those great bowls with handles that are so fashionable at the moment, so it gets cold very quickly. A coffee cup or mug needs to be tall so that the surface area exposed directly to the air is as low as possible. And, no, I do not care about making fancy pictures on it with foam. I just want to drink it.)
Well, as I say, I've had this problem ever since I can remember; and so, when I made friends at university with this chap called Jasper who drove an old car, the seeds were immediately sown for some kind of hilarious mishearing. This thing was a Citroen 2CV, bright orange, with a deckchair-striped canvas roof, and it was probably about fifth-hand. Most students couldn't afford to drive a car at all, but Jasper had picked this one up for about £100 (you could do that in those days), and it puttered noisily and rather bumpily around Sheffield for a few years until it finally failed its MoT (on everything but the engine, the brakes, and the seat belts).
Jasper was a gentle soul, and he did not have a loud voice. He shared a flat with three other blokes, one of whom was my friend Huw (that was how I got to know Jasper). Huw was a very colourful character; he was quite extroverted, and quite nuts in a highly entertaining way. He used to have a cardboard box which he called Different, and when he didn't feel strongly about something he'd go and sit in it and... well, you see where that one's going. And he, and the others, used to give poor Jasper quite a lot of flak about this old banger of his. Well, it wasn't reliable, to be fair; it quite often took a few attempts to get it started, and when it did start you pretty much expected bits to fall off. But, even so, I had quite a soft spot for the vehicle, which is unlike me. Normally I'm not very interested in cars; they're just metal boxes that get you from A to B, I may possibly remember what colour they are if I've seen them several times, and I'll certainly remember if they're uncomfortable, but usually that's pretty much it. Jasper's old banger, however, had actual character, even if that character was rather reminiscent of a friendly old tramp.
So one evening he was giving me a lift into the city centre for some event, and he was telling me how Huw and the others had been ribbing him about it again, and I leapt to its defence. "It's a lovely car!" I said, indignantly. "They shouldn't tease you about it."
Now, remember, this car made quite a lot of noise. So what I thought he then said was, "It's all right. I get used to stick insects."
So I went "Bweh?". As you would.
Of course, what he actually said was "I get used to the stick it gets." But we were both highly amused by this one, so the story got round, and for quite a few years after that, an amusing mishearing was referred to as a "stick insect".
Jasper's vicar of an inner-city Anglican parish these days. In an interesting twist of fate, he married my ex-husband to the woman he ran off with (having no idea at the time that this was my ex-husband, only that he was divorced). He probably drives a much more reliable car now, but I'm sure it's just a normal boring one and I wouldn't develop any particular fondness for it.
I wonder if he still remembers about stick insects?
Well, as I say, I've had this problem ever since I can remember; and so, when I made friends at university with this chap called Jasper who drove an old car, the seeds were immediately sown for some kind of hilarious mishearing. This thing was a Citroen 2CV, bright orange, with a deckchair-striped canvas roof, and it was probably about fifth-hand. Most students couldn't afford to drive a car at all, but Jasper had picked this one up for about £100 (you could do that in those days), and it puttered noisily and rather bumpily around Sheffield for a few years until it finally failed its MoT (on everything but the engine, the brakes, and the seat belts).
Jasper was a gentle soul, and he did not have a loud voice. He shared a flat with three other blokes, one of whom was my friend Huw (that was how I got to know Jasper). Huw was a very colourful character; he was quite extroverted, and quite nuts in a highly entertaining way. He used to have a cardboard box which he called Different, and when he didn't feel strongly about something he'd go and sit in it and... well, you see where that one's going. And he, and the others, used to give poor Jasper quite a lot of flak about this old banger of his. Well, it wasn't reliable, to be fair; it quite often took a few attempts to get it started, and when it did start you pretty much expected bits to fall off. But, even so, I had quite a soft spot for the vehicle, which is unlike me. Normally I'm not very interested in cars; they're just metal boxes that get you from A to B, I may possibly remember what colour they are if I've seen them several times, and I'll certainly remember if they're uncomfortable, but usually that's pretty much it. Jasper's old banger, however, had actual character, even if that character was rather reminiscent of a friendly old tramp.
So one evening he was giving me a lift into the city centre for some event, and he was telling me how Huw and the others had been ribbing him about it again, and I leapt to its defence. "It's a lovely car!" I said, indignantly. "They shouldn't tease you about it."
Now, remember, this car made quite a lot of noise. So what I thought he then said was, "It's all right. I get used to stick insects."
So I went "Bweh?". As you would.
Of course, what he actually said was "I get used to the stick it gets." But we were both highly amused by this one, so the story got round, and for quite a few years after that, an amusing mishearing was referred to as a "stick insect".
Jasper's vicar of an inner-city Anglican parish these days. In an interesting twist of fate, he married my ex-husband to the woman he ran off with (having no idea at the time that this was my ex-husband, only that he was divorced). He probably drives a much more reliable car now, but I'm sure it's just a normal boring one and I wouldn't develop any particular fondness for it.
I wonder if he still remembers about stick insects?
