Contemplations of the Q-tip

I’ve had something on my mind lately, and it has been driving me crazy.

Q-tips, the loveable go-to instrument for the cleansing of the ear hole, explicitly states on their packaging that a Q-tip is not to be used in the ear canal.  

Then, to make an even more ludicrous declaration on it’s label, it goes on to suggest what you can use a Q-tip for instead. 

A variety of uses!!

Let’s see.. applying ointments and cream – maybe.  And that’s more of a maaaaaaaybe than a maybe.  Or I don’t know, am I the only one who puts Neosporin on with my finger?  Hm, cleaning my keyboard –  nope, I don’t think I would buy a box of 500 hundred Q-tips for my bi-annual precision dusting of my laptop’s keyboard. And finally, household cleaning, demonstrated by a Q-tip enlarged 10x relative to its surroundings, lingering over some dirty bathroom grout.  Really, Q-tips?  Is this your attempt at humor?  No one in the history of this world has ever scrubbed a dirty bathroom with a freaking Q-tip.  This is just laughable.  I estimate the usable surface area of a Q-tip is about 15mm².  And I estimate the cleanable surface area of a bathroom is at least 2m², or 2,000,000mm².  So you see, Q-tips, it does not make sense to use a Q-tip to clean something 133,333 times its size.

COME ON, Q-TIPS. I know you know people are buying you because they clean their ears with you. All these silly excuses for alternate uses of the Q-tip is obviously a front.  You remind me of the mafia-owned coffee shop next door to where I used to work.  It was clearly not an establishment for purchasing coffee and pastry delights.  Yet still, I once made the mistake of dropping in for coffee, which was microwaved and handed to me.  And there I sat, for the longest 5 minutes of my life, awkwardly drinking my coffee.  The girl at the counter glared at me.  Large Italian men kept walking into the shop, and they would glare at me and disappear into a mysterious back room.  It was like a clown car, but instead of clowns, dudes in the mafia, and instead of a car, a dingy back office.  I felt unwanted there.

And now here I am 4 years later and I feel like I’m back at square one.  Q-tips, you make me feel unwanted.  I buy you for your one forbidden purpose.  I feel so conflicted.