Little Stalky Goes Deaf

As a learner surfer I spend a lot of time under the water.  I somersault beneath the waves whilst Watson flies off in another direction.  This time spent underwater had a bad side effect the other day when it caused me to go totally deaf in one ear.  Shocking.  You might think I had a load of sand in there.  Maybe some seaweed.  Maybe even an ear dwelling crab.  But no.  It was wax.  And not of the board variety.  My ear clogged up and for a few days it was like living in a bubble.  Everything was echoing and seemed very far away.  It made going to work a barrel of laughs.  I was fine on the phone, with the handset pressed up against my good ear, but I couldn't hear a word anyone was saying in the office.  I encouraged my colleagues to throw things at me but I could hardly do that with customers.  Instead I opted for shoving my good ear in their general direction and hoped that my squinty concentration face didn't scare too many people away.  There were many things that got misheard but generally I made it through.  In fact, I think the bad ear did me a service when it calmed down a potentially angry customer.  Gearing up to give me a mouthful about something that was totally out of my control I actually stopped the man, indicated the bad ear (which had cotton wool shoved in it) and apologised because I couldn't hear properly and could he possibly speak up.  I obviously won the sympathy vote because after that he was perfectly pleasant and even seemed apologetic for getting angry at the girl with the bad ear.  Maybe I should go around with cotton wool in my ear more often.  Anyway, I'd been on the ear drops for three days but nothing had cleared so I made an appointment to see the doctor.  The ear was so bad that when I was in the surgery I didn't actually hear the doctor call my name.  I apologised and advised it was because of the ear.  The doctor asked me if I'd hurt my neck as I was holding my head at a funny angle.  I replied that I was simply angling the good ear at people.  She laughed.  The cause of the blockage was wax and I was offered the chance to get my ears syringed.  The nurse warned me that some people get dizzy and find it a weird experience  but I found it to be quite pleasant.  It was almost refreshing having warm water whooshing around your ear.  Apparently I have very small ear canals, which is why they got blocked.  It also meant that a lot of water went whooshing over both me and the nurse.  The hazards of small ears.  But I felt the ear clear and my hearing rushed back to me in a matter of seconds.  I excitedly announced that I could hear again and the nurse excitedly showed me all the crap that had just fallen out of my ear.  No ear dwelling crabs in sight.  I had both ears done for good measure and now my hearing is as good as new.  So far, it's been a very productive day!