Don't plant your tomatoes until the Melbourne Cup, never let the sun go down on an argument; a fool and his money are soon parted ...

The reason such proverbs endure is because ignoring their advice can result in anything from dead tomatoes, to divorce, to destitution (one may well lead to the other) but, sometimes, adages should be viewed more as guidelines than rules.

For example, I've never paid much attention to "don't put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear". I know I'm not alone.

Obviously, the inner ear is a delicate and quite miraculous component of the body, its collection of tiny organs, bones, membranes and hairs working in symphony to facilitate hearing and balance, so it makes sense not to go poking around in there too much.

Despite this, and with no oto-fetishes of which I'm aware, when the occasion has called for it, I've had no compunction in sticking something most definitely smaller than my elbow into any one of those twin orifices.

I can think of only a single occasion when this proved potentially dangerous; I was a child and a small moth had flown deep into my ear canal. Desperate to silence those fluttering wings - which, at that proximity, felt they belonged to a bat - I went in pretty hard with a pair of tweezers. Each time I came up empty-handed, my panic intensified, so, before doing any permanent damage, I brought the problem to my mother. I was quite sure she'd be as helpless as I and we'd be embarking on one of those special bonding trips to the hospital many women and their male offspring enjoy when the idiot boy is aged anywhere between six and 35. But our standing reservation at the ED wasn't required because, quick as a flash, mum turned off the lights, shone a torch into my ear and had the bug lured out within seconds, proving the saying "mother knows best" is as ironclad as they come.

Insect eviction aside, the most common reason any us of stick something smaller than our elbows into our ears is to rid them of wax.

Again, we're not advised to do this because ear wax is supposed to dislodge itself as we talk or chew (regrettable when exchanging wedding vows or during a job interview over Zoom).

But, let's be honest, when we're clogged with enough of the vile crud officially known as cerumen, none of us are waiting for nature to take its course, we're going in.

And as unnecessary as rummaging around your "external acoustic meatus" may be, it feels good; at times, too good.

Over the years, I'm come across a growing number of aurally fixated zealots who've waxed evangelical about wax. These are the ones who swear by getting the gunk "syringed" out of their heads or advocate the use of those weird candles which melt the stuff away along with your inhibitions and dignity.

I'm sure these are legitimate practices, sometimes medically warranted, I just find them creepy and overly complicated. All I've ever needed is a couple of cotton buds and 10 seconds in front of the mirror.

For as long as I can remember, there's been an abundance of fresh q-tips in the bathroom. This is despite the fact I've never once actually bought any. They're just there, like plugs and washers (my wife calls them "flannels", she's Victorian).

Whenever experiencing that vaguely unnerving sense of cranial accretion, I've opened the cabinet, grabbed a couple of micro-diggers, taken care of business, then discarded them responsibly, in the bin, unlike our children, who, as if proud of their lode, leave the disgusting evidence of their own excavations on the sink for someone else to clean up.

Lately, however, we've been spared that ordeal and the entire ablution itself because we're plumb out of cotton buds, have been for weeks. It's a landmark development in our household hygiene regime, right up there with the day we realised under no circumstances, not even in crippling drought, should anyone share the bath water with our son.

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Once ubiquitous, cotton buds have disappeared from our local supermarket shelves because, environmentally speaking, if not up the nose, they're certainly on the nose and various jurisdictions are gearing up to ban the single-use plastic probes. This policy has been hastened by people, especially when under Covid house arrest, flushing them down the toilet.

Cotton bud rods don't degrade and reportedly combine with all manner of oleaginous nightmares in our sewers to create obstructions; ironic considering the primary purpose of the swabs is to free us of blockages.

Anyway, no argument here, we'll get by just fine without the grooming staple; there are plenty of eco-alternatives out there (sticks, matches).

And now they've been outed, cotton buds are destined to fall into that "What were we thinking?" category.

When considering how the plastic age will be viewed by future generations, it's hard not to think of our own reaction when we watch something like footage from the '50s and '60s of jolly neighbourhoods being fumigated with DDT.

Cotton buds may not ever be seen as sinister as thalidomide or asbestos but we already know in years to come people will be aghast we used them at all.

But that's the commendable thing about the current crop of planetary custodians, we push on regardless of what people think of us. We're quite stoic that way.

My own childhood was a smog of cigarette smoke, talcum powder, unleaded petrol fumes and regular mistings of insect repellent and cleaning chemicals via aerosol cans packed with fluorocarbons.

Forty years later, knowing what we know now, it seems impossible emissions from at least some of these are still being pumped into the atmosphere.

It's especially confronting to see anyone smoking around children.

I pulled up at Bunnings the other day next to car containing a couple of kids and, presumably, a parent vaping away in the driver's seat. As if in a hurry, the man pushed thick white clouds from his cheeks out the window. Each new plume was precisely the same size as the last and each ballooned then collapsed in the same efficient fashion.

When he was done, he pocketed his device, gathered up the children and walked into the warehouse.

But not before putting on his mask.

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