It is Saturday morning, and we are driving along a leafy street a mile west of home, with my wife at the wheel.

“I’ve never been this way before,” I say.

“Me neither,” my wife says.

“Turn left,” the satnav woman says, “and your destination will be on your right.”

“But it’s nice to be sharing activities as a couple,” I say.

“I’m not sure this counts,” she says.

“Of course it counts,” I say.

“Here,” she says. We pull up outside the detached villa that houses the practice we’re attending. We’re not here for counselling. We’re here to get the wax sucked out of our ears.

For months my wife has been going on about the state of her ears, when she knows ear trouble is basically my thing.

“I have more wax in my ears than you will ever have,” I would say, “and you don’t hear me complaining.”

“I don’t hear anything!” she would shout.

“What?” I would say.

Then she found out about a clinic where they clean your ears with a tiny hoover. When she booked an appointment, I asked her to book me one at the same time.

The clinic’s doorbell is answered by a cheery receptionist. We are given two clipboards with forms to fill out, and seated in a waiting area. It’s clear we’re presently the only patients in the building.

“Who’s going first?” my wife says.

“You should,” I say. “In case something happens.”

“So I’m the guinea pig?”

“What did you put for, ‘How did you hear about us’?” I say.

“‘Word of mouth’,” she says.

“That makes it sound like you didn’t do any research,” I say. “Sort of irresponsible.”

“Put what you like,” she says.

“I have to put ‘word of mouth’,” I say. “I heard about it from you.”

My wife is called into the consulting room. I sit alone in silence, staring at a rack of NHS leaflets aimed at the over 55s, illustrated with pictures of people who look younger than me. I hear my wife laughing somewhere in the building, followed by the whirr of an unidentifiable machine.

After a time the machine stops, and I hear my wife scream, “Oh my God!” in what may be alarm, or delight, or some uneasy mixture of the two.

A few minutes later she emerges from behind a door, and I silently mouth the words: Can you hear me?

“It was the size of an olive stone,” she says, holding her thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. “You can go in now.”

The very young doctor tells me to take a seat. She describes the micro-suction procedure and runs through some low but still-identifiable risks: infection, perforated ear drum, persistent ringing. Nothing I haven’t had before.

I lie down on the table, and the suction begins. There is no pain, but the noise is pretty disconcerting, as if someone is running a vacuum round inside your head, bumping into the walls and furniture. I keep my arms folded, and my fists clenched.

Five minutes later I am staring down at the former contents of my ear canal. This was clearly the point at which my wife screamed, “Oh my God!”, but I’m more embarrassed than fascinated. I think I would rather be alone with it.

“Huh,” I say. “So that’s both ears?”

“No, that’s one ear,” the doctor says. “The rest is over there.”

“Whoa,” I say.

“I think we can safely say your ears beat your wife’s,” she says. “But she also told me not to tell you that.”

Back in the waiting area I greet my wife with two words: I win. We step outside into a strange new world of birdsong and rustling tree tops.

On the way home the satnav takes us a different route: right at the lights and round the back of B&Q.

“You need to be in the left lane!” I shout.

“There’s a car there!” my wife shouts.

“Where are you going?” I shout.

“Straight on!” she screams. There is a protracted silence as we head up the A40 in the wrong direction.

“Idiot,” my wife says, under her breath.

“I hear you, baby,” I say.