My right ear’s day started normally enough. Woke up, heard things, the usual…
Little did it know there was evil lurking just moments away…
…evil in the form of an Itch.
At first it was only a little itchy…
Then it got a little worse…
And after a few hours it had completely taken over my life:
It was official: I had an Itch in my right ear.
No, that doesn’t do my condition justice.
MY EAR WAS EFFING ITCHY. Not on the outside earlobe like from a pimple or a bee sting—but deep, deep inside my ear canal. Deep in the ear depths that no sane Q-tip or pinky finger could ever dream of delving.
Can you imagine the misery of such an Itch? Eternally unscratchable. Ruthless. Debilitating.
My every thought revolved around the Itch. I couldn’t carry on a conversation because all I could think about was getting away from people so I could scratch the Itch.
It became my one and only purpose in life: What Can I Use to Scratch This Itch?
Of course I tried Q-tips which, I am certain, made my problem much worse. I am always really careful with Q-tips not to go too deep because I’m hard of hearing as it is (and practically legally blind too, yay for disabilities!) and the last thing I need in life is a busted eardrum to boot. So I didn’t go nearly as deep with the Q-tip as my Itch required, but I still Q-tipped vigorously enough to (I suspect) scratch the inside of my ear with the tiny cotton fibers.
Of course, I don’t know for sure if that’s what happened. I’m no doctor. All I know is that after I Q-tipped the Itch became impossibly more itchy.
It was taking over.
High on its success, the Itch soon implemented Phase Two in its plot to destroy my life: MIND CONTROL. It began planting sinister thoughts in my head in an effort to convince me that there had never been a time when the Itch wasn’t my supreme ruler.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but before long I began to succumb to the brainwashing. I started to forget what a normal ear felt like. I teetered on the edge of total despair, weak and impressionable and very nearly doomed.
My right ear was under siege. It was a bloody reign of aural terror.
Hope seemed utterly lost. I laid on the couch, beaten, my right ear pressed against a throw pillow, sagging in hopeless acceptance, when suddenly (no doubt spurred on by my left ear, which was tired of the histrionics) it occurred to me: I had two unburned Hippie Ear Candles in my hall closet left over from the last time I tried to be a hippie.
I prepped the paper plate and arranged myself horizontally on the living room floor. Poor Kyle lit the candle and I gave in to the chills as the fire crackled down the hollow candle and tickled my ear (a delicious change from the mind-numbing Itch I’d lived with all day).
Seven minutes later the candle had finished with me and as I unwrapped it to see what had come out of my ear I realised a glorious thing:
The Itch was gone.
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