I once impaled my own eardrum with a Q-tip. I was multitasking by letting the cotton swab soak up the excess moisture in my ear after a refreshing shower and brushing my hair simultaneously. My arm raised up and my bicep jammed the resting implement right through my ear canal. It was very loud and jolting due to the incredibly close proximity. Then it continuously made the disturbing sound of a ripping plastic swimming pool inside my cranium. Luckily, it was during the late afternoon and I could get to a doctors office instead of an emergency room. Unluckily, my only mode of transportation was a motorcycle. I learned that day how much physical balance is reliant on the equilibrium created by the complex workings of the inner human ear. Physical balance is also a key component in the operation of a motorcycle. I very unsafely rode twenty-five miles to see the doctor. There was much weaving and wobbling on my journey. The treatment for a broken eardrum is to break it even more. It’s called scarification and it’s just as sadistic as the name implies. It’s not incredibly painful, but it leaves the subject in a state of dismal confusion. Even better for a challenging after dusk motorcycle ride back home.  At one point, I had both feet skiing on the pavement for balance at fifty-five miles per hour.  Sadly, that was not the only time I had done that, but that’s another story involving a facial chemical burn, a heat enhancing safety helmet facing the sun, and a much higher speed of travel.

The moral of this tale is that there is a legitimate reason the Q-Tip people tell us NOT to use their product in the only way we can conceive of how to use it.