Can You EAR Me Now?

No one WANTS to have a bad day, especially on the first day of your college finals. BUT, as Murphy's Law states: If something bad can happen...well...it's gonna happen to me!

I had been sick with a sore throat that was literally kicking my behind and trying to cram for finals...well, at 5:30 in the morning, on the day of my finals, I was woken up by a funny tickling in my ear (not IN my ear) just around my ear lobe...I quickly reached up to get "whatever" it was and, as I did, I felt it go deep inside my ear...the pain was unbelievable..."What the hell was that?!?!" flashed through my mind as I clawed manically at my ear...In a blind panic I ran to the bathroom and grabbed a suction bulb (you know, those little round blue rubber thingys that you never really know WHAT they are used for) and I filled it with water to try and flush what ever "it" was out of my ear...While jumping up and down and screaming "What is it? What is it?" I squeezed water into my ear...there was a kind of whooshing sound and then excruciating pain followed...after about a minute of jumping, screaming, and flushing, something came out of my ear....upon close inspection of "the thing", I realized that it was an insect leg...that's right...the leg of a BUG!...This is where I basically lost my mind...I HATE bugs!...and apparently, I had one IN MY EAR!...I had no idea what kind of bug it was, which made the whole situation even worse...I managed to pick up the phone and call my husband at work and CALMLY tell him what was going on...He swears that all he heard was a high-pitched wail coming from the phone that sounded like "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"...Well, after decoding my incoherent screaming and crying, he figured out he needed to meet me at the emergency room...I don't remember driving to the hospital but I do remember the look on the nurses face when she laid eyes on me...Half of me was completely dry, the other half was soaking wet and I was completely out of my mind yelling something about the bug in my ear...I'm positive she thought I was on drugs or clinically insane (or both)...luckily there was no one else in the ER at 5:30am so I got right in....a wonderful man named Dave (who seemed to find endless humor in my predicament) came in to confirm there was, infact, a bug in my ear (like I didn't already know)...as he filled my ear with a special fluid to kill the bug he told me endless jokes about "how many cockroches does it take to screw in a light bulb" and about "the six foot cockroach that walked into a bar" ...once the bug was dead, Dave used tweezers (which hurt as much as the bug) to fish around in my already sore ear for about 15-20 seconds before he finally got ahold of my unwanted guest and pulled it out....I don't keep a dirty house and I never see bugs beyond the occasional wayward bug who finds their way in if the doors have been open for a while...BUT...I had a cockroach IN MY EAR!....OH MY GOD!...a cockroach!....Dave informed me (in between jokes) that they look for dark, warm, cavernous places to hide and this one was checking out my ear...it was about the size of a pinkie fingernail (the small size of the bug had NO affect on the amount of pain it caused me)....the fact that I tried to get it off my ear had caused it to run into the ear canal...apparently they can't back up and he had no where else to go....lucky me....so now to go with my sore throat, I have a sore ear that will need drops for the next week...the only good thing was I didn't even think about my sore throat through the whole ordeal...and after all that.....I still had finals that day

The Smokey Conspiracy

My earliest memory is of chocolate cake. Granted it was flying through the air at my father's head, but it was chocolate cake all the same. You see, my parents didn't have an ideal marriage, so to speak. Love was not lacking in their marriage just self-control, patience, and the ability to communicate. Before the age of ten, I thought that screaming and throwing small objects at people was just friendly conversation. But that's a story for another day, back to chocolate cake.

It was my fourth birthday and my mother let me pick the flavor of cake we would have that day so, being a normal child, I picked chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! It was on this birthday that I would receive a gift that I would grow to love with a fierceness that only a child could feel towards their favorite toy. He was a Smokey the Bear stuffed doll with a yellow plastic ranger's hat. Smokey was so cool. In no time at all we became the best of friends. We did absolutely everything together. When I ate breakfast, he was there. When I took a nap, he napped with me. When I took a bath, he watched (we were just friends!). Oh I remember the tea parties we threw and the toys we invited. We had so much fun. He never complained when I poured him cup after cup of tea. The first time I rode on an airplane, I was terrified. I didn't want to board the aircraft. Smokey was there to comfort me. He made me feel safe and confident. With Smokey's help, I was able to walk onto the plane all by myself without my mother having to drag me on kicking and screaming.

Then one fateful morning everything changed. I woke up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready for a day of excitement and adventure with my best friend. I rolled over to wish Smokey a good morning but the words caught in my throat. He was gone! At first I thought that he had fallen out of bed but he wasn't on the floor. I looked under the blankets, under the bed, and in the closet, but he was no where to be found. I began to panic, worrying that something horrible had happened to him, so I recruited my mother and we formed a search party. We combed the house from top to bottom, searching everywhere. We left no pillow unturned and no cupboard door closed. We even searched the yard, to no avail. He had vanished into thin air, or so it seemed. My heart broke in two. Everyone tried to console me but I was beside myself with grief. I cried for days mourning my loss. I couldn't eat or sleep without my Smokey. My mother tried to replace Smokey with a stuffed Grover in the hopes that it would help to pull me through my grief, but I couldn't love him. I resented him for being there. I wished that he were the one missing instead of my beloved Smokey.

I'll never know what truly become of Smokey, but I have always been suspicious of my mother. She said time and time again that I was too attached to "that toy". To this day, she denies having any knowledge of or taking part in his disappearence, but isn't that what they all say? Let me just say that the next time she comes for a visit, I will be keeping my eye on her AND my stuffed Grover.