Temporarily removing the prosthetic ear

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Better than winging it

Who are you again? And, why are you biting my ankle?

Temporarily removing the prosthetic ear: The delirium tremors will only last an hour or so: How to improve your hearing by leaving the cell phone at home for once

When Darth Vadar’s son Luke peeled off Darth’s mask, it was already too late for Darth. He was too much machine at that point to breathe the air outside of his mask. Much to Luke’s surprise, Darth was just a greenish, pale guy in his mid-sixties with saggy eyelids, an egghead and a concerned smile. He seemed like a normal guy under all of that metal and may have even been fun to hang out with if he wasn’t always so busy choking storm troopers with mind tricks and his electrical fist. In Farenheit 454, Ray Bradbury foretold the demise our human race when he painted a picture of a shell worn in the ear of each person for every breathing second which they listened to non-stop broadcasts from their soap operas. Cell phones make us less in tune with our children. When we go to the park and the phone rings, we dutifully answer the call. The call always begins with something benign, your polite friend wants to make sure you are O.K. with jalapenos on the pizza tonight or your aunt wants you to keep a look out for the Chia pet she is sending you in the mail. But then the conversation slips down a slippery slope turning into a debate over the virtues of medical marijuana versus prescription drugs for extreme pre-menstrual cramps and incontinence. You try to deflect at least half of your right ear’s hair cells in the direction of your four year old who has taken off down the park on some other tike’s Skut bike and the other half toward your sixteen month old who is now in a lake trying to swim with a family of ducks. Trying to stay calm, you manage to put forth the essential “mmm hmms”,”yeas”, and “totallies” to cousin Louigi whose thinking about giving it all up and joining a boy band. While it is arguable that cell phones improve our multi-tasking ability, what is in fact true is that they are contributing to de-evolution of our species by shrinking our frontal lobes. To name just a few skills lost by shrunken brain cells in the cerebral cortex are: having manners, ability to focus on anything that requires ten minutes or more of deep concentration, and an ability to maintain eye-contact with people. So the trick of the day in connecting with the kid is to leave the cell phone at home, just for the two hour trip to the park. When we arrive safely home, we can go ahead and reinsert our ear pieces. Chances are we will actually remember something special about the day other than losing the keys again.