Turn it down

He wasn't a miner but he was adept at drilling and digging for treasure. The light shining from his otoscope revealed the booty as he dug and dug. 
            "This might hurt a little." he warned as pain was already shooting through my ear.

            In early January my hearing started to fade. I hadn't noticed any hearing loss up until that point, but now there was a definite decline. For two months I put up with the problem, assuming it was temporary. It was when I started to turn the television up to its highest possible volume and still couldn't hear it, that I realized I might be deaf. I called the doctor. It took another month before I could get an appointment. A month during which I would listen to the radio with the volume turned up to number ten. If there was an eleven, I'd have used it. To watch television I took to pumping the sound through the surround sound system, and when that didn't allow me to hear I'd put headphones on, at full volume. So now here I was sitting in a chair at the ear doctor's office, while he dug and scraped deep within the ear canal. Suddenly I heard the doctor very loud and clear.

            "There it is!"
The doc held his mining tool up in front of my face. At the end of the tool was a massive ball of something, something with little hairs and bits of detritus sticking out of it.

            "That's a very large wad of wax Alan."

            "Sure it is. About sixty four years worth." I replied.

Immediately the doctor started digging in the other ear. Again, a bit of pain and pressure followed by a sudden rush of sound. 
            "Damn, this one is even bigger." the doctor said with some awe in his voice.

Again, he displayed the prize of his digs to me. It was bigger, and uglier.

            "How'd it go?" Mark asked as I walked back out into the waiting room.

It had gone great I told him. I could hear again, for the first time in years apparently. On the way out to the car I realized a few things. I realized how god awful our car sounded when Mark started it up. I noticed how when I turned the radio on it was way too loud. But most of all, I noticed that Mark is a very loud man. Very loud.