Fun with store clerks

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have a periodic problem with ear wax buildup, probably from all the loud music and construction noise over my lifetime. When it gets to a certain point, I use over-the-counter liquid drops and a flushing bulb to remove it.

Today was the day, and I got the stuff out and noted that the expiration date on it was 9/2015. Not a real big deal, but since we were going shopping today I thought I’d get a new bottle.

Our local store is one of those small Fred Meyer offshoots called QFC, and they have a small section of health aids, so I thought I would check there before going to a drug store.

So I’m standing there scanning the shelves when a store clerk walks up and asks me if I need any help. Now this startled me as people rarely ask if you need help in a grocery store. So I said:

Me: Yeah, I’m looking for a product for ear wax removal.
He: Oh, you mean ear plugs?
Me: No, the opposite of ear plugs. I need something to remove ear wax. It’s a bottle of liquid drops that you put in your ear.
He: Oh, you mean Q-Tips!
Me: Not at all, actually.

So he starts scanning the shelves along with me, which was pointless, as I can stand and stare without any assistance, and he finally says:

He: I don’t see anything here. We’re kind of a small store.
Me: I don’t see anything either.
He: Do you need help with anything else?
Me (thinking): You haven’t helped me with anything at all up to this point.
Me (talking): No thanks.
He: You might try the Ace Hardware store next door. They have a lot of stuff.
Me, incredulously, and thinking I may have misheard: The HARDWARE store?
He: Well, have a nice day.

As he walked away, I started laughing, and blurted out “The hardware store? Really?” Unfortunately, he was still within earshot, so I may have hurt his feelings.

As it turns out, we were going to the hardware store (where I am well known) to get some bird seed. When I walked in, the manager greeted me, and I asked “What do your have for ear wax removal? The guy at QFC said you might have something” Without even blinking, he said “Well, we have a Dremel kit on sale.”

This isn’t in the pit, because it actually kind of made my day, and the people at Ace thought it was amusing.

2

Classic Bic Stick pen and cap.
The cap is the perfect tool for earwax. And you can breathe through it if it gets in your windpipe.

3

Goo Gone might work… but I wouldn’t recommend it.

4

Links to a flat earth video of some sort.

5

Should have been this,

Looks like I got thread replies crossed.

6

Well, you certainly wouldn’t want to stick a Flat Earth in your ear…

7

Just what Dremel needs: a Q-Tip attachment.

8

Can a person truly get enough air through one of those holes to stay alive?

9

How to Perform an Emergency Tracheotomy

What you will need

A first aid kit, if available
A razor blade or very sharp knife
A straw (two would be better) or a ballpoint pen with the inside (ink-filled tube) removed. If neither a straw nor a pen is available, use stiff paper or cardboard rolled into a tube. Good first aid kits may contain “trache” tubes.

10

That stuff is just hydrogen peroxide gel. I’m betting both stores had what you needed, just not in the obvious packaging.

And if you use the liquid instead of the gel, you don’t need the squishy bulb at all.

Take a capful of peroxide and dump it in your ear. Jiggle your head a bit. When it stops foaming dump it out. Do this about once per week. If you do it every day, the skin inside your ear will get irritated. If you let it wait too long, the crusty ear wax will just swell up and block the ear canal completely.

There is no need at all for those expensive kits.

So go back to Ace and get a bottle of peroxide!!

11

Just for the record, what I use is called cerumol and every drug store I know carries it. It does have a pretty bad smell, unfortunately.

12

Is acetone a good substitute? :smiley:

13

Peroxide works miracles on so many things! Cheap too but the damn bottle needs to come in a gallon size! :dubious::smiley:

Sounds like it might be! :stuck_out_tongue:

14

Spinning things at high speed near your hair generally gives bad results.

15

Sorted.

Never mind hair. Sticking something into your ear rotating at least 5,000 RPM will make your ear canal smoke. At full speed (32,000 RPM) it’d probably catch fire.

16

Well, that would certainly get rid of the wax!

17

Not on the subject of earwax, but still on-top WRT having fun with store clerks, whenever I am buying something at a store and I don’t need a bag, my standard response to, “Would you like a bag?” is always, “No, thanks … I’m going to eat/drink it in the parking lot.”

Doesn’t matter if it is two bottles of motor oil, a gallon of paint, cement crack filler, or rat poison.

Most of the time, I either get no reaction or “Wha???”

But sometimes, I get someone who actually heard me, and looks all worried because I just might be serious.

18

This calls for EMPERICISM!

I just dug up a similar pen cap from my desk, attached a big spring-clamp to it so I wouldn’t actually get it in my windpipe, and breathed through it for a few minutes. It wasn’t pleasant, and now I’m a little light headed, but I’m pretty sure I could get enough air through the cap to stay conscious and alive for quite a while.

As a point of reference, I was once a guinea pig for an experiment trying to measure the activity of a hypoxic brain. The researchers put me on a ventilator that gave me just enough oxygen to keep me conscious at some clinically relevant level of acute hypoxia. That was… memorable, and a lot worse than the breath-through-a-pen-cap experiment.

[/hijack]

19

My variation of this happens when I go to Subway. i’m usually getting three footlong subs, for me and the folks at home. Invariably, the young lady clerk will ask “Is this to go?” :confused: It’s especially interesting when the store is OBVIOUSLY COMPLETELY EMPTY OF OTHER CUSTOMERS. :eek: I say “Yeah…I’m actually not that hungry.”

20

Thanks for the science, but isn’t the intention that you use the emptied body of the pen? Not the cap?