WAX ON!

Do you know exactly what your parents do at work? Think about it. As a kid, if someone asked you, "What does your Dad or Mom do for work?" Could you answer that question? Could you give more than just a title? Can you, now as an adult, give a better answer about your Mom or Dad's work? Heck do you even know exactly what your spouse or your best friend does? Chances are, that if they are not in the same office or field as you are, probably not.

My Dad was an audiologist, an ear specialist. Here's what I know to be facts about his job:

-He'd leave the house very early every morning with his "go mug" of instant coffee and a brown brief case with gold latches and a combination lock. (I always wondered what exactly one keeps in a brief case that locks?)

-He had his own office, which I always thought was really cool.

-He tested people's hearing. I have a vague memory of what this involved. I was must have been really young the last time he tested my ears. Since neither of my sisters could be reached at time of publishing this blog, I am gonna assume that my memory of the hearing test, is accurate. We'd sit in a booth with windows that faced Dad who was on the other side of the glass, sitting in front of a panel of switches. We'd put headphones on and he'd play sounds for us. I can't remember exactly what we did to signal to him that we heard the sound, but if we did it right a stuffed rabbit or some other "woodland creature" would play a drum in the corner of the sound booth.

-He had a really cool 3D model of the inner ear and as both a teacher and a student, I took that model to school to share with my classmates, big and small.

-He loved to have work parties at our farm. Taking his friends on bumpy, crazy drives in our 1971 Chevy Blazer through our golpher hole infested horse pasture made him laugh and his friends kiss the ground when they finally drove back into the yard.

-He gave an interview on the news once on his views about Cochlear inplants.

That's it, tha'ts all I truly know for sure about what my Dad did at work. I know that at home he did not like me to use Q-tips to clean my ears and for some reason I loved to clean my ears. In fact, I still do. Like, I really love it. I love the feeling of twirling a Q-tip around inside my ear as much as I love the feeling of pulling it out and seeing a big glob of yellow goo on the end of it! I love that!!! For the last three weeks, I have not been able to properly clean my ears with the forbidden Q-tip. It's just not the same, using my left hand all by itself without having the right one to pull the top of my ear tight enabling the Q-tip to get good and deep. It's not the same, reaching across my face, trying to dig inside my right ear with my left hand. Oh, how I miss using Q-tips. That will be one of the things I will truly savor when this collar bone heals!