Nation’s Moms Ask How You Can Stand Hearing Sneakers Squeak on Basketball Court Like That

By Meg Reid

YOUR HOUSE — With March Madness in full swing, basketball fans across the United States invite friends to watch games—prompting the nation’s moms to ask how anyone can stand the sound of sneakers squeaking on the court like that.

Mothers report they can barely enter the living room when their children have friends over to watch a game due to the frequent, high-pitched noise of players’ shoes squeaking as they reposition their feet on the hardwood.

“I feel like my eardrums are being stabbed a thousand times with tiny knives. Just like when Mikey brought that gosh darn recorder home in seventh grade,” said Lucy Witmer, grimacing as she referred to her 19-year-old son, Michael. “He did do very well in his little recital, though,” she added smugly.

Witnesses said no one has responded to or even acknowledged the repeated complaints, despite moms asking how anyone can stand the sound approximately every 17 minutes—as they reenter the room with more snacks they just happened to whip up, in case anyone was hungry.

While well-documented, the phenomenon remains poorly understood. Audiologist Marina Lopez said that people tend to lose the ability to hear high-pitched noises as they age, making it especially puzzling that mothers of teenage and adult children still react so strongly to the squeaks.

“The best explanation we have is that moms’ annoyance reflexes are especially heightened when confronted with a combination of their children and sports,” Lopez said. “This likely evolved from waking up at 3 a.m. to take them to swim meets or travel soccer games.”

“Why can’t they just watch a nice, quiet sport, like curling or chess?” asked Marsha Roberts, whose son Kevin and his friends are home from college on spring break. “Or better yet, get off the couch, go outside, and stop listening to something that sounds like hundreds of giant mice getting trampled to death for hours on end.”

At press time, as the games ended and the TVs were turned off, the nation’s children reported hearing their moms watching reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond at maximum volume from the bedroom.

End of the Bench will have more on this story after we clean our shoes.

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