I know they say that you shouldn't stick cotton swabs in your ears. Cotton Swabs are instead for cleaning things like the outside of your ears and baby bellybuttons. Sticking them in your ears could cause injury.

I am not buying into that idea of not sticking them in your ear though. I mean, if they really meant that, wouldn't they make cotton swabs be the size of your elbow?

Regardless of the rules, I use cotton swabs to clean inside my ears. I've always been a rebel that way. However, in the last couple of months, I have had two times when, during this process, the cotton became unstuck from the swab so that, when I pulled the swab out, all I had was swab and no cotton.

And then I realized I couldn't hear out of that ear. Apparently they do not make cotton swabs the way that they used to because the cotton was stuck inside my ear. It's a rather freightening feeling as you imagine having to have your ear surgically removed in order to retrieve the deeply embedded cotton.

Fortunately, both times, I have been able to dig out the cotton without much problem.

It reminds me of a time when I was about 5 years old and my family was on vacation out east. While we were walking on the beach at Cape Cod, I found a very pretty small blue stone. I picked it up and took it to the car with me.

Apparently I really liked this stone and didn't want to lose it because I proceeded to stick it inside one of my nostrils. I don't know what I was thinking but, unfortunately, it got stuck there. At that point, my parents proceeded to question me as to why I would have stuck it inside my nose. I had no response. My sister probably told me how dumb I was and I probably started crying.

My mother was talking about the emergency room and making me breathe in through my mouth so as to not inhale it deeper in. I am sure that she was imagining having this small stone surgically removed from one of my lungs.

Eventually, after a series of blowing my nose, my dad trying to hold me upside down (my memory may be fuzzy on that) and squeezing my nose, the blue stone fell out. You'd think I would have kept it and have it to this day, much like the tube that was once in my ear. But, the blue stone is long gone.

At this pont in this post, I should be able to make up some analogy to my spritual life for all of this. Something like "Isn't that the way it is when we get cotton stuck in our ears and stones stuck in our noses but yet God is still trying to get through to us?" But, as my good friend Todd R would say, "I got nothin'" on this.

Feel free to create your own analogy. In the meanwhile, I will be in the bathroom inspecting my cotton swabs.