I am Lauren, Q-tip enthusiast

I have a post-shower routine. Every single shower I take is followed by these simple, yet sensational steps.

After drying myself off and securely wrapping the towel around my torso, I reach for my black "wet hair brush" (you know the plastic kind, NOT the hairy bristly kind) and proceed to brush/ detangle my wet hair. Because this is the only time I really ever brush my hair, I take these few moments to enjoy the pleasant sensation of the plastic bristles on my scalp.

Unfortunately, my brush and I are usually interrupted by the tingle of my freshly shaven legs. So I put the hair brush down and quickly grab my Johnson's (you know the guys who make the baby stuff- SO soft) lotion and rub it in to ease the burn. If I were to use shaving cream/gel I probably wouldn't have this problem, but that stuff takes too long and is simply too messy; instead of preventing the burn, I prefer to relieve it with the baby soft lotion.

And now, the moment I've been waiting for... my absolute favorite part of the post-shower routine... Q-tip time! I can't even begin to describe what a crucial part of my day this is. We've all read the warnings "CAUTION: DO NOT insert Q-tip into ear canal- doing so could result in serious damage, such as hearing loss" or something of the sort. But I mean, come on, if I can't put the cotton swab in my ears, what else could it possibly be good for? Though the package will try to lead you to believe something very different, everyone knows that Q-tips are not make-up applicators, or mini cleaning tools, or whatever other uses are suggested. While Americans tend to call these cotton swabs by their commercial name "Q-tips," short for quality tips, they are known by users in other countries as both "ear buds" and "ear diggers." This, I believe, affirms my assertion that Q-tips were designed for, and belong in the ears, end of story.

I personally feel that those foreigners (wherever they may be from) who refer to these cotton swabs as "ear diggers" truly understand their intended use. Daily, I plunge one ear digger into each ear canal, in complete disregard of the warning on the box, and dig. I know this might sound gross. When people think of digging into ears, I'm sure all kinds of images of yucky yellow gunk come to mind, but let me tell you, for a Q-tip enthusiast, this is not the case. Those of us who use Q-tips on a daily basis have extremely clean ears, which means rarely do we come in contact with this icky substance.

The reason that I am so enthusiastic about this post-shower Q-tip time is because it can only take place within the first 5-10 minutes out of the shower, while ears are still wet. This is crucial to remember; jabbing a Q-tip into a dry ear could quite possibly be one of the most unbearable feelings ever. As a result of my Q-tip enthusiam (or obsession, as some might say) I absolutley cannot stand to have wet ears.

Not only do they keep my ears clean and give me great relief from uncomfortably wet ears, but Q-tips feel gooooooood. This is the most amazing part; it's like a massage inside of my head. There is something unexplainably pleasurable about digging around in a wet ear canal with a cotton swab... try it sometime and you'll understand.

My post-shower routine continues, but after Q-tip time nothing else seems to matter. Nothing quite measures up.