My senior citizen French class is always chaotic, though generally we are all willing, and surprisingly amiable when all is said and done.

At one point yesterday, as usual, my French instructor couldn’t make out that I was, in fact, answering his question correctly. I repeated the answer much more loudly. “You sound mad,” he said. 

“I’m not mad, I’m just speaking loudly,” I told him. 

“You look mad, from your face.”

“You can’t see my face. I’m wearing a mask.” I pulled the mask down to reveal my Teacher Expression, the one that is Absolutely Blank and causes students to realize they need to consider what they’re saying, because they have just said something worth pausing and examining carefully.

“I should probably get hearing aids,” he said, capitulating more quickly than my middle school students ever did.

I pulled one of my hearing aids away from behind my ear to show him that I was wearing it, and said, “You probably should.” 

He said, “But don’t you get the noises?” gesturing at his ears. I knew what he meant. My old aids amplified every damn thing. You put them in, and the whole world started clattering and chiming.

“No, they are really advanced these days,” I said, and said he could go to any audiologist.

We moved on.

When class was dismissed, one of the other students grilled me about hearing aids, and I told her all about mine. They are marvelous. I have an app on my phone that allows me to adjust them for different situations and even to mute them. (Everyone in that class needs hearing aids, but I’m the only one wearing them.) She asked me how much mine cost, and quailed at the amount, because health insurance doesn’t pay for it. “Oh,” she said suddenly. “I just realized I bought a camera for that much last year.”

In the hallway afterwards, heading out, I complimented the Russian woman on her outfit. She came closer and leaned toward me. “Thank you for standing up to him,” she said, and whisked off.

The instructor has told the Russian woman off more than once, and so (once) did the student who asked me about hearing aids, because the Russian woman is implacable, intense, and humorless. She corrects people loudly and clearly. She never reacts to being reprimanded, just forges on. I never imagined she was in the least disturbed by any of it.

That’s the other thing about the class; everyone in it is peppery, because we’re old and impatient and we speak our damned minds, but we’re all the same people underneath as we always were, and we’re still all sensitive flowers.