My ears proved really functional in Poundland the other day. The fact that they stick out was key. Yes, it was putting on the mask to enter the shop. That mask sat firmly over my nose and mouth because it was well anchored over my ears. Having stiff, loopy ears, is an advantage with those masks made with elastic retainers. This reminded me that my ears have had an association with various times in my life and continue to do so. That never occurred to me before. The lifetime of the human ear, for me, started badly.

The pull of the pole

The first ear incident in my history was a close run thing. As a young child in Shrewsbury, our doctor was a Polish woman. She sat in a small room shrouded by a fug of cigarette smoke. Her first move, when I was introduced as the patient, was to grab my ear. Her sinuous fingers were stained yellow with nicotine. She pulled me, painfully, close to her. However, it could have been worse; I think I was there because my willy was sore.

The early years

As a teen, my ears also introduced me to wildlife. On my council estate, little pipistrelle bats fluttered around every lamp post seeking moths. Their sonar system emits little bleeps and my ears picked these up. Typically, as you grow older your ears cannot hear these. Little did it matter because my ears then disappeared for a decade or so; blame the Beatles. Consequently, the long hair covered my ears. At work, my boss constantly told me to get my haircut but I was deaf to his protestations.

Lifetime of the human ear

After that, my next ear issue crept in slowly, initially unnoticed; my ears began to fill with wax. Why is ear wax somehow distasteful? Older men seem to experience far more of this than women; we men wax as we wane. Consequently, I now have to regularly clear the ears. The DIY route is a plastic squeegee bottle, filled with warm water, and squirted in the ear. It takes time, but blobs of wax finally drop into the sink. The ears can be a bloody nuisance but not when I need a secure mask.

Relationship with your ears

As an aging pensioner, I now have to prepare for the final stage. No, not death. Deaf! If you shut yourself off as hearing fails, it makes you more susceptible to Alzheimer’s. A hearing aid will make mask fitting more difficult. Can you see how life becomes more and more complex?