I need some feedback.

When I get petrol for my bike, I often go pay for it in the service station while still wearing my helmet. The helmet is a pain to take off, because you need to be careful not to dislodge the in-ear headset connected to the iphone that is conveying phat beatz[1] to you during your ride. So it’s easier to just lift up the faceplate so they can see you and don’t think you’re a terrorist or robber or some dreadful combination of the two.[2]

The problem with this arrangement is that you are wearing ambient-sound-stopping in-ear headphones, and THEN a motorcycle helmet on top of that. You can’t hear shit, is what I’m saying. Usually, you can bluff your way through dealing with the cashier, because the payment ritual is fairly standard, but if they go off-script[3] you are screwed.

Most people would just take off the helmet, but as I’ve said that is slightly awkward, so my obvious and elegant solution to this was to search on the app store for a hearing aid app, which takes input from the headset mic, amplifies it, then feeds it right back into the headset. So you just run this app as you’re entering the store, and .. well, you can see how it works.

Question is, does this make me a cybernetic warrior from planet Right Fucking Now, or does this make me eligible for a stabbing in the face with knives made out of pure hate?

I need to know.

[1] Okay, fine, 80’s pop music[4], which is pretty much the exact opposite of phat because back then bass was something that jazz musicians played while poetry was perpetrated.

[2] “Trobber”

[3] “I WILL PAY BY EFTPOS!” .. “Um .. no, I asked how long you’ve had that bike.” …”EFTPOS! YES! THANK YOU! WHAT?”

[4] Or maybe NPR. Because that’s just how I roll.