Skull Candy Endorsement???

My neighbor, Travis, whose family I home teach (in theory), once gave me a pair of Skull Candy ear buds. For those of you who do not know what these are, they are headphones. I love them. They mold to your ears very well and allow a good bass line and sound where most ear buds fail. The best part was that they were free! Well, Monday I was mowing the lawn and listening to the Ramones...er...I mean conference with my Skull Candy and doing so with the volume quite high. When I came in for dinner, I removed the headsets and tossed them aside. I commented almost immediately to Sarah that my left ear felt weird as if it would not pop. I quickly dismissed the feeling as the side effect of listening to my MP3 player too loudly.

Later that night, the dull sensation in my left ear had not subsided so I naturally began cleaning my ears; first with Q-tips and then with hydrogen peroxide. The only result was an increase in the tight and numb feeling in my ear. Upon inspecting my ear, Sarah saw a noticable difference between my left and right ear and assumed there was some swelling or something in the ear that was bothering me. She proceeded to attempt to poke and prod at the mass with more Q-tips and more peroxide. No luck. Tuesday was the same. More Q-tips and more peroxide. The crazy thing was that you could actually touch and see the object, yet it did not hurt. It only provided a dull and strange sensation. This morning I was going to go to the Dr. so as to get an assessment before vacation, but decided first to have one of my girls (as I call them) take a look at it. Shanna is a Mother of four so I figured she would have the best insight and asked her to look at it. Upon her cringing response I asked, "Is it infected? Should I go to the Dr?" Her reply was that it was "not infected, but plastic!"
The foam rubber ends (buds) are what caused me havoc the last three days.

After three people had taken turns trying to remove it with tweezers and one plucked a wild hair, I decided to go to IHC Instacare. (Sidenote: IHC sucks! I have determined they are definitely not the model of efficiency after waiting for two hours to be seen while sitting in an empty office). Once the doctor finally came in, he had removed my Skull Candy ear bud rubber piece within five minutes! I have always heard stories about guys who go into the ER and require the doctor to remove strange objects from orafices, but I never thought in a million years I would be one of them!!!

So, my free Skull Candy has now cost me two hours and a $30 co-pay! While my ear buds were free, the model I have typically cost $70. Well worth it! I don't want this entry to be a Skull Candy bashing entry. Truth be told, I am a big Skull Candy fan! I would encourage everyone to give these a shot. Trust me, you won't be disappointed and the odds of repeating my adventure are slim. I can't blame Skull Candy for my HUGE ear canals! If I wasn't such a tight wad, I would go buy some of the headset kind as well. As a matter of fact, my neighbor, Travis, is in someway related to the Founder of Skull Candy who is currently nominated for the coveted Entrepreneur of the Year Award. You can vote for him here. Anyway. I just thought this was a funny story. Incovenient for sure, but funny none the less. Summary, Skull Candy rocks! Don't use a Q-tip as a solution until you know there is not an obstruction and IHC sucks!