SAULT STE MARIE — Local high school teacher Matt Giordano received quite the surprise on Tuesday when an ear candling session not only removed a quantity of built-up wax from his ear canal, but extracted a model three-masted ship.
“I have no idea how that got in there,” Giordano said, holding the model, which is bigger than his head. “I’ve never owned one of these things, much less laid my head on one for a nap and woke up to find it missing.”
“You never know what detritus might be stuck in a person’s earwax,” said candler Michaela Ryman, who administered the treatment. “Working with some of my other clients, I’ve retrieved Q-Tip heads, earbuds and Skittles – always grape for some reason – but this model ship is definitely my greatest salvage.”
“Ear candling is pure quackery,” said Dr Jasmine Bindra, an ear, nose and throat specialist from Quebec City. “The proven way to remove excessive wax is to have your ears flushed with saline solution by a medical professional. And the best way to remove a model three-master from inside a human head is to have a neurosurgeon saw off the top of your skull and lift it out.”
Giordano reports the experience wasn’t painful, and his hearing has improved.
“I could hear just fine before,” Giordano said, “but sometimes I heard tiny men calling out nautical commands and singing sea chanteys. I always figured those were ear worms from watching too many TikTok videos.”
At press time, a team of archeologists from Oxford reports promising results in their search for lost volumes from the Library of Alexandria as they sift through expelled material from Giordano’s recent round of colonic irrigation.
