Some of you who've known me for a while may have noticed a slight asymmetry in my ears. My ears were normal as I grew up and in fact, I received the "sexiest ears" award in my senior yearbook. But then ....
 |
| Left Ear |
 |
| Right Ear |
So how did I get distorted ears? Well, here is how:
- It was during the war. I saw the sniper and he saw me. His shot was fast, mine was accurate.
Accuracy is important.
- Mona. A single night of passion. I found that magic spot just as Mona bit my ear. It wasn’t until later, much later, that we noticed the blood. We could have rushed to ER to have that bit of ear re-attached but instead we returned to passion.
And I have no regrets.
Well, I have one regret. It was only a single night.
- Earlier this year I was walking along the rim of La Caja del Rio when I saw a family gazing at the view of the Rio Grande. As I watched them snap pictures, their 3 year old started wandering away. Also watching was a mountain lion and as he leapt at the child, I charged. With the screaming child in mouth the lion turned to face me. I hit him on the nose and he swiped at me. I am quite familiar with cats and easily anticipated and dodged the blur of a paw, but I under-estimated the length of his claws. He nicked me on the ear. He dropped the child as we tussled, then the lion ran in one direction while the parents ran in the other direction with their screaming kid.
I never saw the family again but I did see the cougar a couple of times. I’m not sure but I think each time he gave me a grudging nod of respect before trotting off.
- In an effort to appear young and cool and frankly just bowing to peer pressure, I got some piercings a few years ago. You can probably guess most of the rest. While riding my bike thru the forest down a steep rocky hill, I bounced to the left snagging my earring in a juniper branch. The ring was flung one way, the bit of ear another way. I found neither.
After that, I removed all the piercings … some were in body bits I certainly didn’t want ripped off.
- Looking for some excitement, I decided to join a rafting trip down the headwaters of the Amazon from the mountains into the jungles below. It was probably about the fourth day when I decided to go for a swim in the evening. I guess I had a small insect bite on my ear which something like flesh eating bacteria invaded. It wasn’t until the morning of the sixth day that it was decided I needed medical attention, then it was a full day to the nearest hospital, then another day to a hospital that could actually do something. Actually, they couldn’t do much besides remove a chunk of ear and pump me with antibiotics.
I was disappointed. The raft trip was a bit boring. The only memorable thing was the bacteria.
- I belong to the generation that thought sunscreen was to enhance a tan. In my mid-life warnings about sunlight become common and I started using SPF 15. A decade later SPF 30, then another decade before I moved on to SPF 50. A bit too late. And ears are hard to protect with sun block. So a basal melanoma developed and was removed with Mohs surgery by a jittery, neurotic doctor.
At least I hope she remove it all.
- I lived in New Jersey in my early twenties and one night I met a rather loud, sassy, stacked woman in a dive bar. We hooked up. Trouble was, she was a girlfriend of a crazed mafia enforcer type. In some sort of Silence of the Lambs scene, he tied me down and put my head in a metal cage with several hungry rats. They started with my ear but I lured them to my mouth by waving my juicy tongue about. I bit the heads off all 5. When the mafia guy returned, he freaked out seeing the dead rats and me with blood all over my mouth, a demonic grin and snarling at him. He hurriedly let me go muttering and crossing himself. I decided not to see the woman again.
Hint: Besides New Jersey and woman part, not much of this this one is true.