Listening and receiving

I was in my workshop in the USA when a man walked in, looked at me, looked at a cello I was making lying on its side on the bench and said,

"Geetar?"

I, in unbelief, replied politely...

... "No sir, it's a cello."

His wife joined him as he continued staring at the instrument.

" 'e's makin' a geetar." He said, stretching the vowels three times their usual length.

Sometimes we hear what we want to hear and sometimes we mishear because we have made our mind's up. At other times we just don't listen while at other times we hear what was never said.