If You Must Tweeze, Proceed Cautiously

I'm not really sure how to ease my way, wittily, into this one. There seems to be nothing in my head that I can think about telling you that would create the passage I had hoped so I will just throw it out there. Today on the train I watched as a 50 some year old man tweezed his ears most diligently on the train. This is a first for me. A first to actually acknowledge that people do in fact tweeze their ears and a first to realize that it is considered acceptable to do such a thing on the train. Not only did he have the tweezers and the mirror to ensure the careful plucking of specific hairs, but also a cloth that I watched him continually wipe the tweezers with. Right about now I am sure more than a few people are wondering why I am even sharing this story, it really has no substance past the fact that it perpetuates the stereotype that there are things about this country that we will Never understand as foreigners. To be honest, I write about it because it wasn't so much the occurrence that has left me unsettled, it is the reaction I had as it unfolded. Maybe it can be chalked up to time, 'see more, expect less', but what really got to me was the whole safety issue. All I could think about was 'what if the train stopped suddenly and this man got his tweezers lodged in his ear? As one of the people closest to him, would I have to try and dislodge them? Would the most exciting thing that happened to me on this Friday night really have to do with ear hair?' These are the questions that went through my head as the train jetted forward... and yet, perhaps these are the thoughts that are supposed to go through one's head when amazement has worn off and comfort sets in.