A well known saying goes something like this. Never put anything smaller than your elbow in you ears. Well, I’m never one to listen to sayings, and I guess I paid the price this past weekend in New York City. On the upshot, I got to experience private health care. On the downshot, it ain’t any better than public health care. But I digress. It all started on the [long] bus ride to New York. It was an all-nighter, and to pass the time, I brought my MP3 player to listen to old BBC radio broadcasts of the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy. To do this, I was using my Shure E3 headphones, which are in-ear headphones to block out noise, which I also use on stage when playing music. Well, wouldn’t you know it, at one point, I tried pulling out the earphone to hear someone talking, and the damn bud stayed in my ear!! I’m talking waaay deep in my ear.
Now, this wasn’t a truly painful experience or anything, but really an annoyance. I felt all plugged up, and could feel this thing in my ear. Hours and hours later, we arrived in New York, with me still trying to get this bud out any way I could. Next step involved tweezers, but this was still unsuccessful. I spent most of the day touring with it in my ear. I finally decied to go to a specialist, since we had tickets to see The Producers that night, and I wanted to enjoy it. So, Andrea hooked me up with a couple possible hospitals. I ended up going to this one, the New York Eye and Ear hospital, where an ENT (Ear Nose, Throat) Doctor pulled it out in 5 seconds using a good light, and good clips. No harm, no foul. However, to get there took me almost 2 hours of waiting, and cost me $131. All in all, not too bad, but a pain in the ass. Of course, this doctor had to do a full check on my Nose and Throat as well, since he is a specialist. The ironic thing? I got a clean bill of health, yet within 2 days, I had a full cold, with swollen tonsils, stuffed head, etc. Whaddya think about that?
Either way, the weekend in NY was fantastic! We got to see two broadway shows, the Producers, and Avenue Q, which is kind of a spoof of Sesame Street. We wanted to see Monty Pythons’ Spamalot, but it was totally sold out all weekend. We also got to see some great improvised Jazz at a club called Detour on Saturday night. Plus, the deal-grabber that I am, I bought a cymbal set for my drums at a great price at the Guitar Center in Manhattan. The bus ride to and from NY was okay too, but left me pretty wiped out on Monday.
