There I was about four years old.Adorable, if I do say so myself. Still, that long hair hid a dreadful secret. My mom told me that my ears stuck out and I must never show them NO MATTER WHAT.
Of course, because I was told that I had this dreadful problem, I immediately began looking around me and seeing all the girls with ponytails. I wanted a ponytail more than anything!
My mom actually told my dad that she was going to try and find a surgeon who could make my ears not stick out so much. My dad scoffed at the idea of such a thing and told her she was being ridiculous. I wasn't so sure. I mean, what kid wants to be nicknamed "Dumbo"?
My mother was a very enterprising woman. She found an ad in a movie magazine for an adhesive that would correct this problem. I think I was about eight years old the day she finally pulled my hair into a ponytail and then she glued my ears down and sent me to school. Man! I shook that ponytail for all I was worth and I was thrilled.
Unfortunately, while I was sitting in the classroom shaking my ponytail from side to side, "boing!" one of my ears came unglued.
I was mortified. I was the girl with the one ear glued back and one ear sticking way far out! I tried to push the ear back into the adhesive but like so many things in my "technical" efforts, it was to no avail. I even tried using a piece of chewing gum to get the ear to lay back down, but it didn't work either.
I decided the best thing might be just to un-stick the other ear, but that was not possible without paint thinner or a surgeon. It held fast. Nobody said anything and I think it's because they felt sorry for me.
By the time I was 14, I realized my ears were not deformed at all and that my mother was goofy as bat-shit. I pushed my hair behind my ears or pulled it into a ponytail anytime I wanted.
I just never looked back at the days when I had to hide my ears NO MATTER WHAT.
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