The Many (Authorized) Uses for Q-tips

This morning as I was rigorously cleaning my ear canals with Q-tips, I noticed an interesting combination of words on the box of 5,000 Q-tips (a roughly one week supply):

Since my usual morning routine consists of:

• shower
• aggressively clean ear canals with Q-tips
• shave
• daintily clean ear canals with Q-tips
• rain dance
• enthusiastically clean ear canals with Q-tips
• get dressed
• rigorously clean ear canals with Q-tips

…this was naturally a rather alarming discovery. Thankfully, I had just finished my fourth ear canal cleaning, so I was already prepped for the day before this distressing revelation. This left me with roughly twenty-three and a half hours to decide what to do now that I knew the shameful truth.

As I pondered this new information, a thought occurred to me. I’ve got about eleven Costco-sized boxes of Q-tips under the sink that I bought for one purpose and one purpose only: to extensively and exhaustively clean my ear canals in the month of August. If I’m not supposed to use Q-tips to clean out my ear canals, then what on Earth am I going to do with all these Q-tips?

Luckily for me, the cunning graphic designers employed by Q-tips to design their compelling box art foresaw my dilemma, and printed answers for me right there on the packaging. Unfortunately though, none of their suggestions really seemed to make any sense. Take a look for yourself:

Do you have paintings in your house that have too much of a single color in them, like this abstract piece in shades of blue? Well fear not art lover, for Q-tips are here to rescue you. Any time you find yourself forced to look at your mind-numbingly-monotonous art, just hold a Q-tip in front of it and ta-da—blue’s reign of terror is over.

Q-tips also make a good substitute for a mascara brush, but with naturally thick, full-bodied eyelashes like mine, that’s a non-starter. Perhaps this picture is suggesting that Q-tips should be used to soak up bitter tears of regret. I’m guessing that pretty much anything with the eyes is okay. Just wipe and poke them all over in there, dry out the inside of your eyelid, whatever. Have a blast!

Do you need to dust off large pieces of furniture? Forget dust rags or those unnecessarily-fancy “dust wand” contraptions, just use a Q-tip! Q-tips are the perfect dusting solution, allowing precision and efficiency. You can dust an entire (children’s) chair in a mere sixteen hours!

Perhaps you often find yourself spilling various bodily fluids on strangely shaped pieces of wood. Guess what? Q-tips are perfect for cleaning up those embarrassing biohazard ‘oopsies.’ Just whip out a box of Q-tips and go to town on: Blood! Puss! Snot! Bile! The possibilities are endless!

Pointing at one’s own thumb can be a difficult task. There’s always the question of “which finger should I use” and “how do I avoid drawing attention to my finger instead of my thumb?” Well thanks to Q-tips, you can kiss your thumb-pointing worries goodbye. Just take a handy Q-tip and point away my friend, point away.

Q-tips are strictly for adult use only. You must keep them out of reach of children at all times (note the last part of the warning above). But that doesn’t mean you can’t taunt children with Q-tips. In fact, that is one of their best uses! Just wave a Q-tip around just out of the child’s reach and anytime they reach for it, pull away, laugh, and say “psyche!” Good times.


I don’t know about you, but none of those situations really speak to me, you know? I mean, I guess I never thought about how dirty the inside of my eyelid probably is, but the rest of their suggested uses are just utterly useless.

So now I’m stuck with the decision of either ignoring the dire warning on the Q-tips box, or throwing away over fifty thousand perfectly good Q-tips.

You know what? To heck with their warning. I’m going to stick it to the man by sticking Q-tips in my ears. So there.