Seriously? At 4am? Thanks for that.

So I fall asleep on the couch, get four or five hours sleep, wake up, go to bed, can't sleep, get back up, go to start watching a movie at 4am, put my hearing aids on, and one's broken.

Fabulous. That's always good 4am news.

So, again with the "Heh, heh, by the way, the suckage continues" week that keeps on rolling. But it's taken all of 18 minutes for me to put a positive spin on spending $250 that could really go out on better things right now.

I've been meaning for some time now to talk to a non-profit here in town about getting new hearing aids. This will spur me into action. I never should have bought these hearing aids. I should have bought behind-the-ear ones. I am confident in the fact that, because these are not nearly as good for my particular brand and intensity of hearing loss, this has majorly cut into my desire to be social. I find myself wondering often if I could hear better, would I be better at my wittiness in conversation, therefore more comfortable in crowds again?

I mean, THIS is the year to find out. I've had these for five years now. New ones are $5,000. So, I'm thinking outside the box on how I can attain some.

I recommended my brother try to get government help with new hearing aids last year, and he got new ones for free as a result. I suspect my argument is good, that I literally require them for my job of closed captioning. And I'm broke off my ass in the grand scheme of things right now, too. We'll see. I hear it's a recession, so.

But either way, at least it'll be fixed. It's been going for a month or so now. I can't say this is a big surprise. You just want to believe, though, that what you fear's coming isn't really on the way. Bah. It was.

However, if I wind up getting free hearing aids and this $250 expenditure was the catalyst that made that happen, then it's safe to say by years' end this $250 will have become some of the best money I've ever spent. And that's how I'm going to try to look at this right now.

Hey, I might even succeed!