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When I was younger, my mother explained to me that I
had a dirty potato in my head. She tilted my head on
her lap, took a cotton swabbed Q-tip and gently
prodded and probed, cleaning out the earwax as I held
my breath in fear. “If you don’t clean out your ears
once in a while, the potato will push out your brain,”
she said. When she was done poking at my ear, she
held the swab out for me to see. “Look,” she said,
“Lots of potato.” I admired the dirty golden wax on
the end of her swab and wondered how I got a potato in
my ear and how big it could possibly grow.
It was disturbing to think that all I was learning at
school could be rendered meaningless by the sprouting
of a tuber. I pictured a starchy, stony potato slowly
expanding and squeezing out the soft spaghetti-like
brain until nothing remained but icky stringy goo and
the remnants of me dumb as a log. My great obsession
in life became the excavation of that potato. As I
watched TV, as I studied for my spelling tests, as I
picked carrots off my plate at the dinner table, my
finger was in my ear scraping away as much potato as I
could. (Nothing but my finger though because there
was a little drum in my ear that I didn’t want to
damage.) No matter how much potato I removed, sooner
or later there was always more.
Too late, my mom tried to bring an end to my
fixation. She decided to level with me, explaining
that she had been joking about the potato. The flaky
gold I mined was a waxy discharge produced by glands
in the ear to protect the delicate instruments inside
from dust and other particles. (There must be a whole
band, not just a drum.) On some level what she said
made sense. I finally understood why the potato
flakes from my ear tasted acrid and not like my French
fries or potato chips. Still, knowing it was wax
instead of potato failed to mitigate my behavior.
Instead of dirty vegetable, I pictured dirty crayon,
but it was still something that didn’t belong in my
head, pressuring my tender mind.
My mother’s biology lessons and admonishments were
only partially successful. I stopped picking my ears
in her presence or anyone else’s. Instead I waited
until I was alone, and in private shame I continued to
poke at my ears. I knew that what I was doing was
wrong, but I could not stop touching them. The
delicate nerve endings in my ear let me know that I
was alive. Then, I would look at the tip of my finger
for the little bits of waxy something coming from me.
It was all so maddeningly sensual.
I began collecting the granules of earwax in a Ziploc
sandwich bag hidden in the bottom of my sock drawer.
Eventually, I had enough wax to pack together into a
lump the size of a real potato. Finally, I could
visualize the thing growing inside my head. I would
roll it in my hands, slowly adding to it, marveling as
it grew and grew.
Eventually, the small potato became a very large
potato. I cleared a spaced at the back of my closet
for when my earwax potato would be as large as my
head. But my mom must have found it while folding my
laundry. One day I found my clear plastic bag empty
and in the waste of the bathroom. She must have known
what it was, and that I would find out, but she too
embarrassed to confront me. She never spoke of it.
Still, I did not stop, and she pretended she did not
know.
I continued until one day there was a small ache at
the base of my skull. Anytime I felt any sort of
physical discomfort, I associated it with the potato
crushing my brain, killing me slowly. There was the
unpleasant sensation of something tugging at my ears.
My ears felt uncomfortably full, and I wanted to dig,
but my ears were sensitive and ached to touch. As my
hearing slowly faded, my head throbbed painfully. I
lay in bed, eyes closed, waiting for the potato to
sprout from my head. I hoped that it would sprout
from somewhere in the back of my head, where it could
be covered by my hair. Though I feared that it would
sprout from the spot right between my eyes.
Gradually the pain worsened. I could feel the potato
crushing my brain to the side of my skull. The
pressure built slowly. Every time I blinked, I
thought my head was going to explode. If I were going
to suffer the ignominy of death by potato I wished it
could at least end quicker.
Eventually, I tried to get up and seek help. I
stood, but only for an instant as the world spun and
the floor rose up to greet my face. Bam! I tried to
push myself away from the suddenly gravity defying
floor, but with a deft spin it struck me again. Bam!
My mom found me semi-conscious on the floor and took
me to the hospital. It turned out that I had otitis
media otherwise known as an ear infection. Although
the doctor said my illness had nothing to do with
potatoes or my constant ear picking he told me I
should keep my finger out of my ear.
Every day I battle the urge to pick. There is no
twelve-step program to cure my suffering, just me and
a cold dead turkey in the back of my freezer that I
talk to once in a while.
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