Pick of the litter

It is an activity that is as trying, as time-consuming and, ultimately, as unproductive as a Senate investigation. My three female readers and gentlemen, the return of a topic that was as eagerly anticipated as the return of Vidal Doble to the Senate: earwax.  

And so the question remains: To pick or not to pick our earwax?  Unlike other organs, do our ears really need that much self-love?  Won’t that much poking and prodding possibly lead to infection and confession? According to the well-respected otalaryntologist (let’s pretend to know what that means) Dr. Ariston Bautista, who only belatedly realized that this was not a self-help column for young male adults to wean themselves away from their yayas, our ear canals don’t need that type of abuse.

DR. BAUTISTA: You really should not clean your ears too often, hijo. The most that you should do is to dry your ears after taking a shower. But you don’t need to use cotton buds to scrape out the earwax because you might only injure yourself.  If there is a small amount of earwax there, you might push it against your ear drum and can possibly cause pain and deafness.

RJ: I’m sorry, Doc, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you. 

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I read somewhere that you should never stick anything in your ear that is smaller than your elbow. As a general rule, I would like to avoid objects that do any probing, elbow or otherwise. In fact, Q-Tips should just be used sparingly in grooming your ears. It is relatively safe to swab a Q-Tip by the opening of your ears. But why even spend thousands on those cotton barbells when your pinkie finger will do? A pinkie finger with a month’s worth of nail growth is a great temporary storage facility for earwax until you can finally figure out how you can make money off of it. But, in the meantime, please try not to insert any finger larger than your pinkie. Aside from reasons of dexterity, being poked with fleshy digits in tight enclosures is something that men should generally avoid.

But should we really pick our ears in the first place? Isn’t our nose a jealous mistress as it is? According to Dr. Bautista, the ear is a self-cleaning organ. And damn, don’t you just wish that all of our other orifices were as considerate? Apparently, the best solution is to leave our tutuli where it is. Just like many Pinoys, earwax migrates out of the ear canal by itself and does not require any motivation.   And more importantly, your ear gum protects the ear canal skin and the eardrum. 

So how do we get rid of our waxy buildup, Doc? Can I just light a match in my ear to melt out all the wax?

Hijo, I would very much like to say yes in your case. But that will not get rid of your earwax. Simple motions like eating, chewing and talking — most of these movements will take care of eliminating the wax. It will just fall out unnoticed. Sometimes the earwax falls on your shoulder and takes care of the elimination of the wax. Sometimes it falls on your shoulder, and you notice the flakes. 

Wow, Doc, so sometimes what’s on my shoulder might not be dandruff, but actually tutuli droppings!? I have found new ways to lose my three female readers.

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But aside from sheer tastelessness, our earwax is also there for reasons of posterity. Just imagine the number of foreign objects that are encased in your tutuli as they accidentally swoop into your ear canal. Those foreign objects may be annoying for now. But in a few million years, when future biologists are looking for ways to replicate DNA to create their own version of Jurassic Park, they needn’t look further than that insect that waded into your ear glue.  And if they cannot find that fossilized mosquito in your ear canal, they can still look underneath your fingernail. 

It’s A Gold Mine In There

Mind you: even if your earwax picking is an addiction, it needn’t be as unproductive as a Senate hearing. For those of you who have been following the “GoNegosyo” section of The Philippine STAR, I am sure they can figure out how to turn this hobby into a profession.  After all, ear picking is all the rage in Asia.

Right now, there are Indian street ear-pickers drowning in rupees as they extract earwax from a billion-strong population. I spied a video on the Internet that featured a busy street corner in New Delhi lined with ear pickers who were scooping out dollops and dollops of earwax. There were customers impatiently lining the streets waiting to get their own dollops scooped. Just to meet the customer demand, the street ear cleaners were forced to develop an efficient way of cleaning their “utensils.” After deftly scooping out a serving of wax, the cleaners would quickly dab the wax on the outer side of the web of their palm, then blow at their instrument to shoo away traces of any waxy remnants before finally reinserting the instrument for further extraction. That video of the street ear-pickers also had the added benefit of helping me lose weight as it left me without an appetite for the past several days. 

In China, specialty teahouses are clogged with clients who sip their herbal teas while ear-pickers nimbly spear away at elaborately formed earwax formations. Teahouse owners have been reportedly more tight-lipped than Romulo Neri as to what special ingredient gives their herbal tea that soothing aroma and pungent taste. But I am sure it is not MSG. 

And in Japan, there is an overworked executive who winds down his day by laying down on the lap of a woman dressed like his mother and sucking on his thumb while he gets his ear picked in an ear-cleaning parlor. Really. In fact, the act of ear-cleaning among Japanese men is considered an act of intimacy but without the happy ending that many a massage parlor enthusiast has grown familiar with and almost been arrested for.  

While you are reading this, there is probably another Asian getting his earwax excavated. 

But don’t take my word for it. Just ask your well-coiffured DOM to point out to you his suking barbershop. You know the types of barbershops I’m talking about, right? The type where the smell of pomade wafts through the air and a dog-eared stack of Playboy magazines from the ‘80s are hidden under two issues of the latest Time magazine? The type where real men go to get manicures and pedicures? It is only in barbershops like these that you will find her ready to take your ear to task: Manang X, the professional ear picker. Manang X is not only armed with the latest in ear-picking technology but also with a big shiny radar device that she straps to her forehead. The radar is apparently connected directly to her brain so that she can detect even the minutest particles of ear debris lodged in your ear canal. This manang will strip your ear clean of minerals more thoroughly than a foreign mining firm. And for a couple hundred more pesos, she will trim away your nose hairs and cut your toenails as well. Take that, Indian street ear-picker!

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Doc, should you let other people clean your ears for you, aside from your yaya?

I see women in the barbershops doing it. Barbers, if they know how to do it, then I find no harm in it. They can pick at the small pieces of earwax, but kung malalim na I don’t know if they have the dexterity. You might just injure the eardrum. 

Doc, can we really trust our ears to these people? Even to Manang X? Do they have extensive schooling in ear picking? Do they have degrees in mining technology? Do they get lessons in target practice?  

Do you really talk this much, hijo? I can give you a lobotomy, you know. Don’t worry, it will be free of charge.   

A Hundred Ways To Leave Your Lover

If you think there is money to be made from picking other people’s earwax, there is actually more money to be made from the earwax itself! Think about it. If they can make handbags out of the skin of janitor fish that clog up the Marikina river, if they can make gourmet coffee out of the beans that come from civet poop, if the CHED can invest millions in a mothballed Call Center Education Project, then who says you can’t make money out of waste products?  

I have been experimenting with my own ear matter to see if it has any utilitarian value aside from exponentially decreasing my social network. So far, there are two uses that I have come up with:   

Molding clay. When earwax is liberally applied to the hair, it is an excellent way to provide shape, contour and hold. I have also noticed that the smell of earwax on your hair is an excellent way to repel the opposite sex and metrosexuals.  

Massage liniment. My fiancée swears that her masahista discreetly picks out her earwax then uses it to rub into her temples at the tail-end of her deep-tissue massage. I often ask her why she doesn’t complain to her masahista about using her tutuli without her permission. “Damn it,” she rants. “I know that she’s using my earwax, but when she massages my temples it feels so good that hygiene can take a backseat for a few more minutes.”

However, the problem with both of these products is that you cannot extract commercial quantities of earwax using your pinkie finger alone. You need an industrial-strength solution. And that solution is candling.

Yes, candling. I know it sounds remotely lascivious, but so does most of the material that appears in this column. Candling does not involve sticking a candle in your ear to collect wax, although Dr. Bautista gamely volunteered to stuff a candle in my ear for medical research. Ear candling involves a candle being placed into the ear canal. Then a wick is lit and the candle is allowed to burn for a short period of time. When the flame is roughly two inches away from his body, it is extinguished. The flame supposedly creates a vacuum at the other end of the candle, which can suck out not only the earwax but also the evil “humors” inside your brain as well (I think humors refers to brain matter where most of those sex scandal videos are stored). When the candle is removed, the base of the candle typically appears dark brown, the perfect quantity for your future molding clay/massage liniment business. But remember, the technique of candling might not be applicable for other orifices. Except if used for pure amusement. 

Be warned, though. The Colon Therapists Network website says that “you may hear some crackling and popping” and “you may feel some heat during the ear candling session.” If colon therapists see fit to warn us about its adverse effects, then I can understand the reluctance behind trying out ear candling.

But if you can get past the initial discomfort of having a flame burning close enough to your ears to turn them into sisig, then just imagine the possibilities you can create from the volume of tutuli you will extract! Forget about those small-time molding clay and massage liniment businesses. Think instead of all the candles that you can make out of your earwax! You will make an absolute killing on All-Souls Day. But think even bigger! Imagine if you can convince celebrities into letting you make candles out of their earwax?   Wouldn’t you like to be lulled to sleep while inhaling the alluring odors of Marian Rivera’s ear canals? Or maybe, you can smell the slimming secret that has led to Juday’s newly-discovered 70-pecent waist-to-hip ratio? Or imagine how loquacious and offensive you can become once you get a whiff of Sen. Miriam Santiago’s earwax?

Unfortunately, I came across this discouraging bite of reality: earwax is not really wax in the “candle wax” sense because it is not paraffin. But truth should never get in the way of doing good business. Just ask our government. That is why the celebrity earwax business should not be a private undertaking or else you will lose money. But if you work out a build-operate-transfer scheme with the government, your celebrity earwax project will not only push through with or without NEDA approval, but it will also earn five times more than what your original financial projections were for it.  That is the magic of Philippine commerce.

The Devil Made Me Do It

And there is good reason why picking your own earwax can be a therapeutic experience as well. According to auriculotherapy (or ear acupressure), the ear is like a microcosm of the human body, with one part of the ear representing one part of the human body. If you stimulate specific parts of the ear through ear picking, you could inadvertently be giving yourself self-love too. 

So, Doc, how come some people can’t help but pick their ears?

Well, you know, the sensation of picking can often be so pleasurable na tutulo ang laway mo. 

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Exactly.  I just hope that the next time I clean my ears that none of my other body parts end up dribbling as well.

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For comments, suggestions, or for the whereabouts of Manang X, please text PM POGI <text message> to 2948 for Globe, Smart and Sun subscribers. Or e-mail ledesma.rj@gmail.com.