You know what? I'm tired of being jealous of all you hearing people with your convenient earbuds. Earbuds for cell phones, earbuds for ipods. Earbuds aren't compatible with hearing aids, at least not in my experience. And when I go to the store in search of headphones now, I'm confronted with about three headphone styles in the midst of 100 earbud choices, and the cool headphones won't accomodate my over-the-ear hearing aid design. I'm stuck with completely clunky-looking ones that look like they were designed in 1992.

(This isn't just a complaining rant, I promise. I'm headed somewhere constructive with this one.)

I love my digital hearing aid, which has three settings: regular, telephone, and a filter for crowded rooms. (That last feature totally saved my ass at all the noisy restaurants and parties I've been in this past week during the Feasibility Study Road Show. More on that later.) What I want is a Bluetooth digital hearing aid with a fourth setting that would kick in the Bluetooth as a built-in earbud for the cell phone that I do have and the ipod that I don't have. That would rock. And it would be justification for buying an ipod.