Buds, anyone?

I bought a heap of cotton buds lately. Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm stocked up until the second coming. That's when I realized that cotton buds were pretty expensive. You could just imagine me lined up at the cashier's table, with a sack full of cotton buds, then realizing that I didn't have enough money to pay for it so I brought out the plastic.

Wait, have I told you why I felt compelled to stock up on a lifetime supply of buds? It was one of those really life or death situations. You're watching television, then your ear itches. So you try sticking your finger in your ear and wiggling, maybe the earwax would be jarred loose. 9 out of 10 times this doesn't work, of course, and 5 out of 10 times you make it worse. So you go to your supply cabinet to get some cotton buds and baby oil. Guess what? You're all out.

So you tell yourself, don't panic. I've still got some cotton balls, and a box of toothpicks. I'll be fine. Over the years, my dad has demonstrated remarkable skill and resourcefulness by crafting his own home-made cotton buds. This is some real, old-school ear-javelin we've got here. So I try it, but the cotton keeps falling off the toothpick. So I try putting some spit into it (literally) so the cotton would hang on a bit more securely, but as soon as I let it go the cotton unwinds itself and breaks free.

At this point, all hell breaks loose.

I did the next best thing for relief that I could think of. I went to the sink and drowned my ear under the faucet. Didn't help, now I've got an itchy, wet and cold ear. Irritated is an understatement to what I'm feeling, I wanted to take a screwdriver, punch it into my ear and turn a few loose screws out. This is just torture.

Of course, I figured the screwdriver would probably be a bad idea, considering how much I shelled out just to buy 'em babies. Stainless, tempered Japanese stainless steel, magnetized tip and sturdy rubber grip. I wasn't about to bloody these by sticking them into my brain matter.

So anyway I went into my sister's room, and looked for a hairpin. Yes, you heard (or read) me, a standard issue looped hairpin. This was a trick my mom used when we were kids. My mom hated cotton buds. To her, they were evil little things, out to infect your ears with bacteria and puncture your eardrum. But hairpins, which were invented and designed for an altogether different purpose, was apparently perfectly suited to ear cleaning. I'll bet my mom thinks they should be called ear-cleaning pins. I found a bunch of hairpins... but there was either a butterly, or a star, or Hello Kitty glued to it. Even if I did manage to fit them into my ear, I guess the thought of me going to the ER to have Hello Kitty extracted from my ear canal wouldn't exactly be a boost to my erstwhile non-existent street cred.

So all I could do was sleep on it. When I woke up, the itch had somewhat subsided enough that I could walk a straight line to the store and buy me cotton buds to last me 2 lifetimes.