The Plight Of A Man Who Can Wiggle His Ears
And his glasses.
When I was a kid, my parents would take me to visit my great grandfather on my dad’s side. He was in his late 80s, bespectacled, white hair on the sides, on his mustache and he had nothing on top. He would show me these cool tricks, like how to multiply numbers with your knuckles. He was pretty slick for an old man and I liked what he had to show me.
One of the tricks he showed me was how to move your ears. I was fascinated that he had figured out how to do that. I didn’t see him very often, but still remembered that trick. I think he passed away before I could ever show him that I could move my ears, too.
So I practiced. I tried in vain many times to get them to move. I would sort of feel around for the muscles I needed to move them. I usually wound up wiggling my eyebrows, or my scalp. But then one day, I found them, two little muscles that moved my ears. I was so glad to find them.
I practiced moving my ears often. At night, I’d wiggle them to the rhythm of the music I played as I went to sleep. I even got to the point where I was wiggling my eyebrows and my ears to the music, alternating between them.
As I grew older, I figured out that I could use my ears to pull up my glasses if they slid down my nose. I could move my ears in two directions, too. I could pull my ears back from the front, or make them go up and down. I began to take notice that I was building some strength in those muscles, too. I developed a…