“There. My ears are all dead. Now you try."Three times I repeated the movements she'd made. Slowly, carefully, but nothing left me with the impression that my ears had died. The wine was rapidly circulating through my system."I do believe that my ears aren't dying properly, " I said, disappointed.She shook her head. "That's okay. If your ears don't need to die, there's nothing wrong with them not dying.”

“I know some words floated through my ears, but my mind refused to absorb their meaning. I just shook my head slowly as the wall of pain washed over me, leaving me submerged and broken in the flood.”

“I like watching baseball as much as my grandma’s left ear is loud. (She’d probably give her right ear for a left ear that wasn’t soundproof).”

“I brought music." I pull my iPhone and ear buds out of my bra and plug them in my ears."What else do you have in there?”

“Good creatures, do you love your lives And have you ears for sense?Here is a knife like other knives, That cost me eighteen pence. I need but stick it in my heart And down will come the sky,And earth's foundations will depart And all you folk will die.”

“It is my wish to die of unique causes, perhaps in a high-speed tricycle crash, a bizarre stapling incient, or as a result of inadvertently sucking my brains out through my ear while trying to untwist the vacuum hose.”