I am deformed, and I never knew it until the iPod era began.

When I put standard iPod head phones into my ears, they don’t stick. They fall out.

No, not just when I pull, or walk, or run. Even when I sit motionless and don’t breathe, they still fall out. I had to examine other people’s ears to figure out why this is. There is a little ridge of cartilage on the bottom of most people’s ears. So when the head phones sit in there, they kind of are hooked over that ridge.

I don’t have that ridge.

I am deformed or, more precisely, earally challenged.