So Bill thinks Q-tips are dangerous.
You know: Q-tips. Or cotton swabs. Or whatever they call them.
Yes, he believes them to be dangerous. He doesn’t like me to use them in the children’s ears. “They can cause real damage,” he says. “You shouldn’t put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear,” he says.
I say that ear wax is disgusting– at least the visible kind is– and I don’t want anyone being grossed out by the ear wax in my children’s ears, thank you very much.
And so I clean, Very Gently, their ears with a Q-tip.
I don’t like to be All About Hygeine, but really, good hygiene is a gift we give to one another. I don’t mean to be picky about it; I just am.
So I floss daily. And I brush twice a day. I clean my ears routinely. And I Never go to bed without washing my face.
Bill isn’t really like this. He brushes regularly, yes. He showers regularly. But he’s not really like this. Not really. No.
So the other evening I managed to get Bill in the bathroom near the Q-tips. “Hold still,” I told him, and I cleaned his ears. And it was Really Impressive what I was able to withdraw from his ear on that Q-tip. It was Really Something. It was Really Gross.
“Look at this,” I said to him, wielding the Q-tip. “See?” I said, my voice full of love and affection. “That’s gross,” I said.
Bill took another Q-tip and another, continuing to work on the job I had begun. “It’s my job to be gross,” he said.
Oh? And I don’t know which is more impressive: the wax on the Q-tips or his wonderful sense of humor.
“Somebody in the family has to be gross,” he said. “And it’s not going to be you.“
