I've got DREADED WAXY BUILDUP...
...and there's nothing Johnson and Johnson can do about it!

Why? Because this Dreaded Waxy Buildup is not the kind you find on FLOORS. I went to the Doctor last week; I've been having some mild 'balance' problems ever since I had the Flu, the strain known as the Really Bad Flu, back last fall. The doc said, "well, yer balance problems shoulda gone away by now". To which I concurred, concurring as I normally concur. So he looked into my ears, (normally the origin of balance problems) and found that ever-dreaded WAXY BUILDUP in my Left Ear. He then got his nurse to work on me so he could hop away and see other patients. The doc handed me off to a nurse. Ulp. She did pull a buncha stuff out of the ear canal, then stuck some sort of pneumatic pressure-washing device up my ear canal and let 'er fly...BOOM! I thot my Skull Was Gonna Cave In. The net result of that doctor visit? I walked into the Doctor's office with hearing in both ears, and left with hearing in only ONE EAR, which means trying to listen to a stereo record right now is a rather futile thing to try and do.

So now I know, at least to a degree, how Beach Boy Brian Wilson has felt all these years. His sadistic Parental Father Figure whacked him upside the head with a "2 x 4" when he was a kid...causing Brian Wilson, one of the greatest musicians/producers ever, to have Total Permanent Deafness in one ear and he's never been able to hear, in totality, anything he's ever produced. Now, when I'm watching TV, it sounds like the sound is coming from behind and to my right, because the left ear ain't doin' nothin' but sticking outta the left side of my head, catching microscopic particles as they drift by. My left ear, right now, is a Vestigial Organ. As opposed to a Hammond Organ. No, seriously, we don't really need the 'little toe' anymore, and we don't need 'the appendix' anymore; those organs whose functions have been Phased Out over evolutionary times are known as "Vestigial". The organ is a Vestige of its old self. Like my Left Ear, WHICH CAN'T HEAR RIGHT NOW!!!

But I know my ear wants to heal. I can put my left ear ON a stereo speaker, and it hears a tenth of what the other ear (the one with no Dreaded Waxy Buildup) is hearing. So at least I haven't lost the hearing in my left ear permanently. I hope. It would appear that active hearing nerves lurk under all of the Dreaded Waxy Buildup I appear to have. The Doctor, himself (not the nurse), today, mined some more Mineral Nuggets outta my ear. He also used a Pressure Washer in my ear canal, only it wasn't nearly as forceful as the fire hose (well, that's what it felt like) that the nurse used last week. I'm wondering if the Nurse's Pressure Washer didn't further embed "the dreaded Waxy Buildup" in my ear canal. Ah, but the tale doth not end here, dear reader. I've been sent home with Ear Drops. Okay, fine. And if my ear isn't better by next Monday, I get to go to another Doctor who has an Ear machine which has teeny-tiny little forceps that are supposed to be able to grab...or blast apart...(ulp) any Dreaded Waxy Built-up masses that lurk in my ear canal.

To sum up: Before my doctor visit last week, I had hearing in both ears. I now have hearing in One Ear. I've been wrong before, but I coulda sworn that the general objective a patient would have in Going To A Doctor was that Said Patient Would Become Better. I've heard about how small-town medicine can actually cause a shortening of a life span (hopefully not MINE); at this rate, pretty soon I'm gonna ditch the medical community around here and go looking for some sleazy traveling salesman who'll open up his mangled briefcase and pull out a bottle of SNAKE OIL for me to try. And if that doesn't work, maybe I'll stick LEECHES in my ear. Hmmm...not a bad idea. They could suck out the Dreaded Waxy Buildup. And if that doesn't work, maybe I'll put my ear in physical contact with one of my stereo speakers, put on "Trampled Underfoot" by Led Zeppelin and turn the sound up to Mach-25 and BLAST out the Dreaded Waxy Buildup. I'm kinda thinking that Life is like making car payments. Once you've made the last payment, the car starts falling apart. 'Cos that's the way my own physical chassis seems to be these days!
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SINCE IT'S POLITICAL SEASON out there, I couldn't leave without throwing in this little item: In a letter to the editor yesterday in one of the newspapers down here, someone wrote in saying that the Dollar must really be in bad shape these days; Mitt Romney spent all that money in the primaries and he STILL couldn't buy votes! Ba-Da-BING!!!!