# 17 Cotton buds

The bathroom is a whole new minefield of sinistry; use someone’s ‘restroom’ (sinister name) and you suddenly get a new, thrilling yet often unsettling view of them. Several lavatorial items can inspire this revelation – upside-down shower gel, tweezers, bubble bath – but none scales the same horrific heights as cotton ear buds. These sperm-shaped superfluities serve no purpose other than that of seduction, showing their possessor to be so focussed on personal hygiene that he’s willing to penetrate his own head and can he penetrate you too? Yet consider their horrible, chalky texture, the feeling that there’s some kind of bewigged insect crawling about inside you, and you realise that it’s really not worth it. Still, the weirdest, scariest facet of these terrible beasts is that you’re not even supposed to put them in your ear. Think about that: if they weren’t creepy enough, you’re not even allowed to deploy them in the one role, wax excavation, to which they are admittedly well-suited. Unattractive, dangerous and useless: the very definition of sinistry.

Attic rating: 7 out of 10