I have a confession to make

It's time for me to confess and lay bare the vices that occupy my time during the day. The truth is I spend a lot of my day picking hairs out of my ears and nose. My wife plucks hairs out of my ears every now and then (she used to do it for her boss at an old job!) and her obsession with overly-long hairs has spread to me. Now I can't help but let my fingers drift up to my ears to feel for little hairs poking out. I let my fingernails grow longer so that I can pick them out more effectively, but when they get too long they become less useful (because they are less rigid and bend more easily, in case you were wondering). I often get thick hairs on the same corresponding spots in both ears. They feel like beard stubble when they first pop out, and I scrape my ear raw trying to get the little bastards. Sometimes I win, and sometimes I'm forced to give up and wait until I get home to remove the offending spike with tweezers.

The worst/best are the longer hairs deeper down in my ears. I can feel them with my finger tip when I brush away a little dried wax, but damn it to Hell, I come up just short when I reach in to pull the motherfucker out. So I end up spreading my ear cartilage, trying to wedge my thumb and ring finger in there. (The ring finger is thinner then the middle finger, but longer and stronger than the pinky. If that's not even better evidence of God's creative design than Kirk Cameron's banana, I don't know what is!) As you might guess, this relentless pursuit of a light-averse hair in the bowels of my outer ear can get quite uncomfortable. But I can't stop. And here's why: The rapture at finally getting a hold of the hair, starting the tug to make sure the grip is tight, feeling the tiny pin-prick of the follicle resisting the extraction, and then completing the sweet release out of the skin is quite the triumphant rush! Very little is as satisfying in my everyday life as battling a reluctant, hard-to-get ear hair and winning. Often, especially if it's a big one, I keep the hair on my fingertip and marvel at the formidableness of my fallen foe. It takes me longer than you would expect for me to finally say goodbye to the hair and brush it onto the floor. I am fascinated with my quarry.

As for nose hairs, they aren't nearly as enjoyable to pluck, and that's because they can really hurt. Often my eyes will tear up when I pull out a particularly recalcitrant one. The lighter, thinner hairs near the middle front of the nose are the worst for pain. The longer, darker ones on the inside, while impressive, don't captivate me. Nose hairs are just gross, and don't offer as much of a strategic challenge. Removing them is somewhat of a cosmetic necessity. Pulling ear hairs, on the other hand, is a sport done for the thrill of the hunt.

So what weird or gross personal grooming things do you do at work?