Sitting down at my desk this morning I happened to scratch my ear before doing anything else. I’ve got old man’s ears and something was tickling the hairs that grow around the lobe, making me dip a pinky finger quickly into the cleft between the lobe and whatever that knobby bit of cartilage is called that sticks out in front of the lobe.

There was something just inside the opening. What the hell?

I cautiously poked a pinky in there again and, when I pulled it back out, it was covered with enough wax to light all the votive candles in the Vatican. (Man, I bet that would smell so bad.) I got my handkerchief out, wiped my pinky clean and poked around in there again, and again my pinky came out caked with wax. I really couldn’t stop at that point, could I? I poked my finger in there yet again and this time pulled out a clot of wax like a big old wrinkled raisin, generously smothered in peanut butter.

It was so huge that I had some trouble getting it out, and probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t gotten stuck in the sludge on the end of my finger. Then I sat a moment, gaping at it. Really, I should have been deaf in that ear, it was that big. The ick factor made me want to get it off my finger immediately, but when you pull something that large out of your head you have to give some consideration to whether or not to throw it away. It might turn out to be something vitally important. Without medical experience, you really don’t know.

In the end I decided to pitch it. I could still hear, my brains seemed to be working more or less the same as always, and I wasn’t bleeding. Flick! Away it went. I suppose I could have stuck it on the underside of my chair and left it there until the end of the day, in case it turned out I needed it, but I didn’t want to touch it again, so it was outta there. What the hell. Got to take a chance once in a while.