Earbud Cartilage Deficiency Disorder

For many years I have lived in a lonely world.  I’ve never been one of the cool guys and always felt a bit left out.  When walking through the grocery store I wouldn’t be in the middle of a conversation and then have someone walking by respond as if I were talking to them.  I’ve never had a hands free call while driving down the road.  I’ve never had someone ask me if I was listening to them because my Bluetooth headset’s lights were flashing.  Mostly I’ve been in this lonely world because I never saw a need for a Bluetooth headset.  Call me old-fashioned or strange but when I needed to call someone it felt easier to dial a number and then hold it up to my ear and make the call.  Now I am sad to say I must continue to live in that lonely world, but now it is for another reason.  Earbud Cartilage Deficiency Disorder.

First, and most importantly, I have to thank the team at AiSpeed for making me aware of this deformity I have but was not previously aware of.  I was recently given the opportunity to review one of their Bluetooth headsets. At first I was going to pass it up but then decided to just give it a shot and see what it was that I had been missing out on for so long.

When I first ordered the headset I was very excited.  I would finally be able to see what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately I was very disappointed when I tried to use it as it kept falling out of my ear. I was ready to leave a bad review when my wife took it from me and tried it out, she had no problems. I then had my four kids and a friend try it out, they had no problems. I did some research and discovered that I am a member of a rare group of people who do not have an anti-tragus (or if not completely missing they have a small anti-tragus). The “official” name of this disorder is Earbud Cartilage Deficiency Disorder (ECDD).

Due to my unique deformity, I opted to have my wife help me take care of the review for me.  My wife was very impressed with the device and noted that the sound quality was very good and when we were talking on the phone I couldn’t tell when she was using the Bluetooth headset or just using the regular phone. She had no issues with the earbud piece falling out and she commented on how easy it was to use.

She did have a few issues at first because the directions indicated that when pairing the headset to your phone you needed to enter a passcode of 0000 on the phone but it never prompted her to enter the code, it just paired. That being said, it was insanely easy to pair, it just didn’t follow the directions that were provided to do it.

But back to ECDD.  This is a very real disorder and explains not only my current issue with this Bluetooth headset but also explains why growing up I could never use ear buds.  It may also be one of the reasons kids made fun of me in school (granted I have no proof, but as cool as I was they had to have some reason!)…  If any of your friends are suffering from this embarrassing and awkward disorder please don’t let them suffer like I have.  Be there for them and be the strength and support that they need.  Who knows, maybe you’ll be one of the few people who can’t use the next cool piece of technology because you suffer from some previously unknown deformity…