Evolution: Not Perfect
We have eyelids, right? Glorious those, with the canny ability to convey emotion via the slightest adjustment, their delicate lashes providing endless blown wishes. Communication by batting. We understand these exquisitely wrought, paper-thin lids – like asymmetrical faces – aren't perfect. Fishing errant lashes from eyeballs and their allowance of filtered light to penetrate our eyeball when our husband is in bed on his iPad, are frustrations, but minor enough.
We considered flaps covering nostrils even pre-covid. Errant, uncovered sneezes, odours galore – nose flaps would be lovely, but we couldn’t sort the breathing challenge without imagining fleshy films to allow air to pass freely. At that point, honestly, we lost interest.
It came to us in a flash. Earlids.
Anatomical precedence has been set. Mouths open and close. Sphincters – on bladders and colons – ditto! Although, to be sure, sometimes not fast enough, and Off the gluten we go! Or the unfortunate day our gym trainer cranks our treadmill without warning and our pee splashes...everywhere. Serves her right, we think murderously as we drive home, weeping and humiliated, with a sweatshirt from the lost and found tied around our waist. Shame prompts us to book with our ob/gyn. She glues in a sling – made of tape – while we enjoy twilight anesthetic and – according to our nurse who enjoyed our enjoyment of this twilight state – blather on about how we once saw our no-nonsense physician at Costco and were happy she was just like a normal person! in normal clothes! After satisfactorily demonstrating the self- catheterization skills we learned at pre-op, we’re released to vomit in our mother’s new car, then make supper for children who shout about terrible food. Later, we escape to room with locking door where we sit (gingerly) on bathroom floor, googling bladder sling side effects and educating self on migratory tape and class action lawsuits. We get all hopped up about how women are treated by medical system until we realize for millionth time we cannot, simply cannot, take on whole world. Pick our battles, we anger-weep, as we insert ridiculous tube into tiny hole, then self-soothe with painkillers and the internet, tumbling down the JCrew rabbit hole till we fall asleep.
We return to bed after kids leave in the morning but get back up and go to kitchen when painkillers begin melting in mouth because we forgot to refill water glass. Dog is now upset and won’t stop barking so lure into crate with treats. Lay on sofa now as bedroom too far and listen to howling displeasure for much longer than we’d have placed money on. An ear flap that slides closed – we picture it, sliding down. Or perhaps it would go sideways, like sliding door which has nice synchronicity with name of our all time fave movie. Sliding earlids would be cool, we decide, and we’d be chuffed about that vibe. Then we remember how our brothers could jiggle bathroom sliding door open when we were a child, and the more recent time we forgot opened sliding door was behind wall when we hammered nails so we could hang picture that had been propped up since moving years before. Door now permanently nailed open and induces anger about many things when we look at picture and/or try to close door.
For next week, whenever have something urgent to do, instead ponder earlids. Would they wink? What would it be called if they did? Study etymology of wink and are surprised to discover had little to do to do originally with eyes, but note its nice harmony with blink. And what about blinking. Would earlids, well, what would they do? Query famous linguist by email as to potential language around potential earlid functions but still awaiting reply. Check email several times a day, as remain convinced linguist has simply been stunned by excellent, fun question, then wonder darkly if he is a linguist with genetic engineering side hustle who has stolen idea and is running with it. Wonder about locking in related domain names and getting rich later when we sell to him for large sums after tough negotiations.
As tender parts heal, have time to ponder human’s use of everything but words to say how we really feel. If we had them, would we signal with earlids the way we use rolling eyeballs and narrowed lids to convey irritation? Subtler, certainly, than the hands-over-ears and stamping feet of young children ,but dismissive, nonetheless (although nothing beats the eye flick of a teen). Are your earlids even OPEN? parents would shriek, certainly, but even if their earlids were open, children would likely remain immune to the nagging, deploying instead yet one more weapon against hearing much other than the ping of an alert.
Abandon complex thoughts on why children are way they are in favour of thinking about fashion, our mostly faithful friend (skinny jeans and pointy shoes forgiven because fashion generally doesn’t fail us two seasons in a row). We’d definitely style our hair differently, we decide, turfing the notion of Long Hair Forever! Maybe short cut our new thing! Strangers would rave about rocking new pixie. Or, who knows – we might grow our hair even longer – at least on the sides – hiding when our ears were open or closed. Sudden, urgent worry weasels in and cancels fun, frivolous hair dreams: What about our glasses and their important, long-standing dibs on our ears? Thinking about earlid impact on eyesight assistance inspires panic, so we quickly change tacks.
We'd get them checked. Definitely. Crevices would need cleaning; folds could become infected. Some of us might develop malfunctioning earlids! Babies could be born without them, or with them stuck shut. Perhaps a simple clinic procedure to solve, only rarely gone tragically wrong. A few kids would, obviously, snag fishhooks on them. Some would grow up with only one, a few evolving a missing-earlid swagger, while others suffered the self-conscious pain of difference. A few might endure delicate surgeries to reattach the limp, severed lids presented on ice in urgent care clinics.
What kind of doctor would specialize in earlids, anyway? An entire field of practice might open up; a new, lucrative, market, like ophthalmology! Hospital residents would compete for prestigious earlid rotations because earlid management both paid well and offered the excellent work/life balance some – mostly female, duh – physicians crave! Conferences funded by earlid pharmaceutical drugs in topical destinations dedicated to the novel auricula operimentum and its intricate systems could impact important medical speciality selection and funding, and once-popular fields would moan about how earlids are trending.
Wait. Would, gasp, they have little earlashes? And if they did, would we decorate them? Buy make-up for them! Get thicker, fuller earlashes glued on by the newly trained earlid techs on trending on social media? Hashtag earlidlashart. For nights out we’d apply false earlashes. And oh my, what about jewelry! We’d have earrings, and now also earlid rings. Of course we would. We’d spend hours scrolling TikTok, then more hours searching tutorials for earlid lash hacks (and then days regretting we didn’t purchase those domain names in advance).
We consider their maintenance, recognizing fragile lids might stretch after years of heavy, dangling piercings, and we accept we’d likely despise the sight of them, like how we (unfairly) despise stretched out lobes on older women, and – we comprehend we are too old to understand this – the younger generation who purposefully make large holes in their ears. Of course, earlids would thin as we aged, become less agile, open slower, and maybe sometimes not at all. We’d plump them with fillers and Botox, obviously, our derm is always looking for new revenue streams.
Earlids would definitely close while we slept, but we worry some people's might remain half-open and we’d be revolted. We know it’s not nice but know we still would think that's creepy, like how when we were a kid our younger brother’s eyes occasionally stayed open and we freaked out when we’d realize he was actually sleeping. And what about children gently lifting the lid and pouring water in someone's ear after they saw it done as a practical joke? Would they wake up, like that time we gently poured a cup of water in someone’s ear (for fun!) and they were angry for the whole entire day, even though we said sorry?
Headphones would need redesigning, but this is a money-maker – at least equal to that of constantly changing charging plug ports. We’d need to be careful with our earlids in the cold, and wear specially designed hats and toques and mufflers so we could still raise and lower them. Because if we put something over them, and they didn't work as well, we we’d be upset; especially if they were stuck shut in one position, like when we sometimes sleep on one folded over earlobe and wake suddenly, in searing, red-hot pain, thinking how did this happen. As we gingerly unfold our ear and wait for it to stop hurting we contemplate how mad we are that we are that tired. Just as we drift off, we wonder what would happen if there were a war, and we lost our glasses or broke them? We firmly decide not to donate all our old frames to the charity collecting glasses for people who can't afford them like a woman at work wants us to. As our paper-thin eyelids allow moonlight to pierce our skull, we acknowledge we are selfish and castigate our greedy, glasses-hoarding ways, and get up and put frames in box for charity, hopeful people will appreciate our fine choices, even though currently out of style. With sleep done like dinner we craft amazing plan to break into optician’s office to steal lenses if war transpires, then recall optician has no lenses on site. Attempt to pacify anxious future thoughts about post-war world children will live in by deciding to go back to contacts because we won't care about allergies to contact solution with a war raging, and we know optician office has loads of contacts for us to pilfer because we once saw them in the sample cupboard. We’re still thinking about how to source cleaning solution the next morning while driving our headphone-wearing child to school.
Later, we hobble around the grocery store, happy with functioning bladder, but less happy with bruised thighs, because laparoscopic just means we can’t see what happened. We triumphantly determine that yes, earlids would definitely ache in loud places like this stupid shop. We imagine noisy events, raucous Christmas dinners with people shouting over music, and decide we are not inviting them next year because we enjoyed that covid Christmas without them (even though we said we didn’t).
We know evolution doesn’t necessarily follow logic (See: cramps, tonsils, moles, incontinence of any kind), but we’re hopeful earlids are on the way. We would also be amenable to tails if that’s already in the works. Gosh. The wagging alone!