i'm scratchin' so much it's makin' me itch

how can we be out of q-tips? the last time i checked the bathroom cabinet, there were at least four boxes of 400 each down there. is this a prank? a sick joke? and now we were down to the last lonely few. i haven't purchased a new box of q-tips in more than two years. in fact, i distinctly recall the last time i scored a brand new box of brand name cotton swabs. there was a huge sale going down at the shoppers across the road. it was a saturday - the first day of the sale. it seemed like everything in the store was up for grabs. patrons were kicking and screaming just to get their hands on the few remaining discounted items in the joint. chaos and pandemonium reigned that day. shelves were laid bare that day. egos and elbows alike were bruised that day. but the q-tips display near the front entrance was hard to miss. and those little blue rectangular cardboard boxes were virtually calling out to me. one ninety-nine a pop! do my eyes (and ears) deceive me? one ninety-nine? quick. grab a dozen or so. how many little blue rectangular cardboard boxes can my 6' 6" wingspan carry? whatever i managed to get my arms around, the killjoy cashier working the register that weekend put me in my place when she smugly pointed out that the flyer distinctly referred to a four-box maximum. ok, so four boxes it was. i could live with that. let's do the math. four boxes at 400 ear scratchers apiece totalled... 1600 episodes of unbridled glee and merriment. of course, i failed to factor in my wife's penchant for using those tiny cotton gemstones in the application, blending, touch-up and removal of certain cosmetic wares. i, on the other hand, had my own selfish uses in store for my loyal cotton friends. do not insert swab into ear canal. entering the ear canal could cause injury. if used to clean ears, stroke swab gently around outer surface of the ear only. so folks were actually using those little guys to clean their ears? how could a q be used to clean an ear? as heretofore mentioned, i use them for one reason and one reason only: 'cause they feel so damn good! oh yeah. feel so good. thanks to the mighty q, the impossible-to-reach itch is no longer beyond the realm of scratching. avoid the ear canal? the impossible-to-reach itch is practically native to the human ear canal. and as long as i have ear canals, i am sending my little cotton buddies in there to work their magic. one of my doctors (and i've seen, maybe, forty or so in my lifetime, but i digress) once told me that i should never put anything smaller than a tree stump into my ear. i guess that was his not-so-humorous way of cautioning me to avoid the use of q-tips or products of that nature. bah, humbug. probably another medic who failed to finish at the top of his class.

"sometimes it is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission" - oise mentor

now that's fresh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SgvJY9xxcA