The Case of the Missing Hearing Aid

One of the "special" parts of my job is to deal with equipment like hearing aids, cochlear implants, and FM systems. My kids are old enough that they can tell me when they can't hear, if their hearing aid got wet, or if they need to change the battery. My colleague Mrs. L isn't so fortunate as she teaches kindergarten and first grade. She has a six year old (let's call her Sally) who likes to fidget and take things apart ... like her hearing aids. Yesterday she thought it would be fun to see what happens when hearing aids go down the playground slide. Turns out, what happens is that you lose the hearing aids and then spend the rest of the day in tears. Mrs. L didn't think this was as funny as I did :). She managed to find the ear molds (cheap part) and one of the actual hearing aids. Everyone searched high and low for the other one, but with no luck. She even "frisked" down each of the students and checked backpacks. Sally was finally sent home with half of her equipment. Ironically, this morning a different student's mother (from the same class) called in to say that she found a hearing aid in her daughter's pocket. I wonder if this other student was saving it for a rainy day or if she was planning to sell it on the black market...