Things I don't get #5: Loud Speakers (not the electronic kind)

Since Jerry Sienfeld has already composed the penultimate treatise on close talkers, I am left to delineate the common annoyances of an overactive alternate modality. The range of these poor souls extend from the "voice modulation syndrome" guy who speaks just a notch too loud in all circumstances, to the perpetual mumbler who gets frustrated with people asking "what?" and decides to suddenly enunciate as well as talk loud enough for every senior in the room to dial down their miracle ear. Finally, there is the poor soul who tells the "how do you sell chicken to a deaf person" joke (the answer, of course, is the ironic, but certainly not unnannoying outburst of a loud "you want some chicken).

Nothing can cause an instantaneous aversion to whatever is coming out of your vocal chords than an excessive amount of gusto with which it is said. The problem seems to effect males and females indiscriminately, but it is all the more shocking when a loud, high pitched voice comes out of a small, petite woman. However, the worst perpetrators are the aforementioned mumblers. As if in aggression to no one being able to decipher their incoherence, they shout whatever trivial fact that they were bumbling about directly into the tympanic membrance and make every listener sorry they justified the comment with a "what?" "hmmm?" or huh?" Dude, don't punish me because you suddenly acquired the ability to separate your words. Still ever worse is the close-talking, loud-talking individual who seems to have missed the day when they taught social norms in grade school (his sweat pants were probably dirty and he couldn't find his velcro shoes . . .oh wait, that was me).

Still, there is another camp of those who seem to think that they need electrical assistance whenever they are speaking to a group (or individual) of greater number than their monologue (and who can be sure they don't use a mic when talking to themselves). My eighth grade gym teacher used a microphone to give out instructions before class every day. Nearly every day I wanted to remind him that there were literally only twelve of us sitting there and we already knew the rules to basketball. Certainly the feedback from a cheap portable microphone made it harder to hear than his minuscule voice. The voice was not even that small, rather his voice had a nasty habit of constantly cracking, which was only amplified by the microphone. Maybe the poor chap just enjoyed electronics, but my theory (as is every eighth graders) that the funny cigarette he was smoking in between classes effected his cognitive decision making.

All that said, I'd take the over eager beaver over "the whisperer" any day.