Hear ye!

Cleaning out massive amounts of earwax is not only healthy, but it’s super fun! And, if done properly, it can be highly rewarding. Especially if you: 1. are me and 2. live in a place where ear wax is some kind of currency.

I have always had lots of wax in my ears. It’s a gift. And I try to clean them after showers, and so on, with modest success. Sometimes a small, dry chunk will unexpectedly fall right out and land in that little well just above my earlobe, where it will sit until it is plucked out by me or perhaps a lucky coworker.

On a recent doctor’s visit, I was told that my ears couldn’t be properly examined, for all of the wax buildup in there. So, this Memorial Day weekend I decide to take things into my own hands, and I purchase earwax drops and a fun rubber-bulb-squirting-thing.

It goes a little something like this:

1. Put in a whole lot of drops.

2. Put cotton in your ears to keep the drops in there for a few minutes.

3. Pass the time by reading a magazine or making up little earwax songs.

4. Remove the cotton.

5. Fill the bulb with warm water and lean over the sink.

6. Stick that thing into your ear and squeeze the fuck out of it.

7. Wince.

8. Look into the sink to see what has come out.

9. Repeat steps 5 through 8, with increasing intensity.

No, it doesn’t hurt, per se. But it is crazy loud. It is a little hard to describe, but can best be compared to what it might sound like to, I don’t know, shoot water directly into your ear at a high velocity.

The first several rounds are unimpressive. Little flecks of wax – like the ones you get when you jam your finger your ear while driving – appear in the sink. But nothing much. It's disappointing, really. Patience and persistence, however, are all that it takes.

I squirt a few more times. Each time by the way, as the water runs back out, it makes the same sound as a bottle of soda when you pour it out rapidly: air bubbles go in, liquid comes out, air bubbles in, liquid out. Glub, glub, glub. Just like that – only a lot quieter. Well, a lot louder, really. Hmm.

As I am thinking about this sound, and wondering if any of this is worth while, I squirt again – and it’s louder than before. I wince. I glance into the sink. There has to be some mistake. I blink. I look again.

My first thought is that this is a terrible way to die, and how in the world could that little rubber bulb of water have taken out pieces of brain? I stare and blink some more. (Blinking always seems to be helpful at times like this.)

Sitting in the sink are three (three!) eraser-head-sized globules of brownish, reddish, yellowish… stuff. Brain. It has to be brain.

Nope! Not brain! My smarter readers have probably figured it out by now. It’s earwax! It’s more earwax than any human being has ever had removed at once in the history of earwax removal. I didn't there was that much space in there! I mean, holy crap! The combination of pride and terror is palpable. The excitement in the bathroom is electric.

So, I do what anyone else would do: call for my wife.

She runs upstairs, leaving our sweet children at the lunch table, and comes into the bathroom to make sure I’m okay. I’m smiling. She smiles back. I step back from the sink and gesture towards it – as an electronics salesman might gesture to the latest technology. Like him, I will let the product do the talking.

She smiles. She leans forward. She looks. She gags. She pats me on the back and leaves.

As she walks away, I’m a little sad. This is big stuff! This is huge! And now it’s over. How anti-climactic.

Then, I remember: ear number two! “Yes!” I actually say aloud with a fist-pump.

I repeat it all over again. Sure enough, just when I think nothing is coming out, the swish gets really loud and a few chewed-chicklets of earwax plop into the sink. They are just as huge, deep-brown and horrifying as before.

What a weekend! Life is grand.

You hear what I’m saying?