The Curious Case of Ear Buds.

April has given a wonderful spring in Tianjin so far, and with every layer of clothing that comes off, we’re practically kilos lighter (if only…). It’s really such a great feeling to be shelving all the duck feather, goose feather,  faux fur, and nylon whatever we’ve been armouring ourselves since November. Finally, REAL SKIN!

Anyway, something else furry seemed to have entered into our Yeo-Nicolier spotlight recently. EAR BUDS.

Hear me out.

1^st part:  Trixie (our feline femme fatale) who has always enjoyed watching me while I do my morning makeup regime, has taken a serious interest in a small jar of earbuds that sits on my bathroom sink. I don’t fancy her contaminating the fresh clean cotton buds, so every sshhhttt (a la Dog Whisperer, yes it works too) I do manage to keep her away…  for 10 secs. But she comes back again – sticking her white paws into the jar trying to pull out a piece.

The fun for her is to roll the ear bud out of the jar, roll it off the sink and onto the floor. Then the excitement begins – the cats start a mini pawball battle with a moving target, pinballilng and kicking all around the house. The best condition is when the ear bud is bent into an ‘L’ shape – that’s when the ear bud even flips around in all possible directions. It’s like a micro jumping pogo!

So that has brought cheap entertainment to at least two members of the household for a while. And every weekend when the cleaner comes, she finds ear buds under the sofas, the beds, the fridge. Some will probably never see the light of day until the next tenant comes around.

And then… Part 2.

Guess who had another unexpected fun with an earbud recently – Vincent of course. You see, my husband’s ear has a very healthy diet of bud-cleaning everyday, twice a day, without fail. We spend a substantial amount on packs of ear buds, but that’s okay. Part of maintenance package.

But recently Vincent’s been annoyed with a lousy brand of earbud we found in some cheap store.  You know, when the cottons parts go out of whack quickly, or sticks bend too easily. Like toothpicks – you should always invest in the best. But only the discerning and experienced would know.

And the best we did not acquire this time.

So last Monday morning, at 6.30am, Vincent came to me for help: Cotton got trapped, where? In the ear.

Tricky issue – how does one extract a small cotton from a tiny earhole? Suddenly, more questions arose: Where is that ear drum? What if I burst it accidentally with my tweezer?  Rattattatat? Didn’t know the ear tract was so winding…

I freaked out. He freaked out. And so we thought: don’t pry.. Don’t dig. SUCK.  So before I knew it, he hauled out the vacuum cleaner, and started sucking on his ear! But wait, there’s the noise! So between a desperate husband, a stuffed flipping ear and a long hose, there was breakfast entertainment for the cats.

That didn’t work. So because breakfast must be had, he decided to get it done professionally. That is, see a doc.

Thankfully by 4pm, his ears were speaky clean again.

By 6pm, his box of cheap ear buds were in the trash.

By 7pm, our Trixie (who loves trash) was rolling in a sea of cheap ear buds.

And everyone was happy again.