No, I don’t mean the stuff that gathers inside them. I’m talking about the plague and annoyance of male middle age: not that your hair falls out your head, but that it takes root in your ears thereafter.

You can’t really shave the inside of your ear.  You can use a clipper, but it’s annoying and imprecise.  I can’t stand this stuff, and after watching a few shows where people had large amounts of hair ripped from their bodies, I thought: why couldn’t I wax my ears?

I fiddled around with the idea quite a while before I took the plunge. At the grocery store:

“Dear, where is the wax stuff women use to take hair off?”

“Over here somewhere,” puttering past the toothpaste.

“But you’re a woman and this is a woman thing.  How can you not know where it is?”

“I don’t use the stuff, you goober!” In a few minutes, we found some Nair face wax strips.  Cost about $6.

I waited until everyone else was gone before I decided it was time to give this a whirl. I didn’t want any help, or if it came to that, any witnesses; I was going to do this my way, without any wisdom. Went into the bathroom with the Nair stuff, opened it up. It said that I was supposed to use it on shorter hair, and that when I pulled the strip off, to rip against the direction hair was growing. What direction is hair growing in your ear, for gods’ sake? I read the instructions, deciding which ones to heed (rub it first to soften the wax with warmth; wash the ear first) and which to ignore (most). Soon it was wax or die time. The effort at washing my ears was a moderate success given that it’s not that easy outside the shower.

The strips came in pairs, which one pulled apart: great, one per ear. (I think the ones I chose were the ones intended for women’s mustaches, not their chin hairs.) Of course, the transition from inside the ear cup to the outside is anything but a flat surface, so I somewhat pinched the strip in there. How long do I leave this on? Evidently not long at all once it’s slicked down. Okay:  rippppppppppppp! That hurt, leaving my ear bleeding a little. The strip left a gummy residue all over my ear, and didn’t get all the hair (especially the long tresses). By the way, this is not wax. Wax is what drips down a candle, or you use to shine your car. This was stickum, about like duck tape. In fact, I think duck tape might do a better job.

Fine, I decided, let’s scissor off the flowing locks and see if a second pass will work. Disregarding the admonition never to do this to the same skin within 24 hours, press, ripppppppppp. It got more of the hair this time, though there were some whiskers left. Now time to apply the lessons to the other ear. Trim dainty curls, press on strip…rippppppppppppp! You know, ears are pretty sensitive. I saw no need to make a second pass, since the second ear went rather better. Only then did I note that you could use a given strip several times, so for fun, I put it on the moderately furred back of my left hand.  Rippppp. Slick as a whistle.

My ears felt traumatized, but not horribly so, so I passed on the ‘soothing wipes.’ That may have been a bad decision, especially if they would have taken off the excess glop. I certainly wasn’t going to GooGone my ears. I guess they worked, imperfectly but maybe as well as one could hope for given the terrain.

Since I was using a female-specific product, I waited all evening for Deb to notice the Tremendous Change and give me Lavish Compliments. Nothing! Crushed that she failed to notice. I finally showed her, including the bloody part. Her reaction:  “Oh my god! You are such a fucking dork!”

Always there for me.