Eh? Whadja Say, Sonny?

I'm getting old.

I never really thought of myself as old. I feel pretty much the same as I did when I was 17 (I had a hard time doing ten push-ups at 17, right?), but recently I had an experience where I realized how old I am becoming.

I don't know how many of you have heard of the "mosquito" ring tone, but just in case I have to explain it to all you old fogeys out there, it's a high-pitched ringtone that teens put on their phone because adults can't hear it. This way, their phone can go off in the middle of class and their teacher won't hear a thing - even though their classmates all know what's going on.

This ringtone, however, is not only benefiting youth. Some companies have played this ringtone over the speakers in their parking lots to keep teenagers from loitering. What goes around, comes around!

But I digress.

I found a hearing test online and decided to play it out loud over my speakers at work (I have very understanding coworkers) just to test everyone's hearing - I was shocked at the results. I played the 8000 Hertz tone just to get their attention - it worked. Then I progressively went up one by one and asked them if they could hear anything with each click. It's all fun and games, however, until someone gets hurt - and my ego was seriously bruised in this incident.

I couldn't hear 160000 Hertz.

I played it a number of times, and each time my coworkers would cringe and put their hands over their ears, while I strained to hear anything at all. I thought they were just kidding at first, but they weren't. I felt older each time I played it, and my coworkers wanted to kill me by the end of it (however not as much as they wanted to kill me when I played a Wesley Willis marathon), but in the end I had to face the cold, hard reality - I'm old.

Now, in my ears' defense, this hearing test was played over my computer speakers in a noisy room, AND when I tried it with my headphones on, I was actually able to hear the 160000 Hertz frequency. . .or maybe that was just the residual ringing in my ears from trying the different tones over and over again - I'd like to think the former.

So, now is your chance to prove you're better than me: Click here to test your hearing and let me know at what frequency you start to feel old.

Happy Hearing!