Odd Things You Notice

I tend to notice when I build up ear wax. My ears, the insides, start to itch something awful, like they were begging me to scratch them or something. And I do. I start scratching around the circumference of the earhole, and when that doesn't cut it, why I drive a finger in and give it a good wriggling. Yes, I do this in private. Most of the time, anyway.

I've done this countless times throughout my life. So many times, in fact, that it has somewhat become an involuntary reaction. I notice that I especially feel the itch whenever I'm wearing a pair of headphones.

One thing that never fails to surprise me, however, is that whenever I start plunging my appendages (not those appendages, you perv) into my ear, I end up with bits of cerumen at the tip of the fingers. It's usually a dab when my nails are short, but when the nails are long, some of the ear wax is scooped up by the extra cuticles.

Yes, I know this is normal. And yes, I expect this to happen all the time. What I never expected to happen was the fact that I enjoy finding large amounts of ear wax built up inside my ears from time to time.

Why?

Because I don't use cotton buds. Instead, I use an ear scooper. This clever little spoon goes into your ear, and with a smoothly executed grab-and-tug motion of the wrist, you can scrape off gratuitous amounts of ear wax from one corner of your inner ear. You'll see it sitting on the rounded edge, like primed royal jelly waiting to be cured for human consumption. If it weren't so gross to consider, I'd probably sit and watch a scoop my my ear wax for minutes, just because I sometimes act like a retarded baboon.

The other odd thing I've noticed is that my right ear tends to build up more earwax than my left ear. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that my right ear is what I'd call my dominant ear - that is, this is the ear that I use to figure out fine-tuned melodies or speedy bass riffs. So technically, it's the ear that does around 60% of the listening.

And yes, I know talking about ear wax is a really smart way of breaking the ice from a blog hiatus. Sue me. I like my ear wax.