Not For the Faint of Heart

I am currently reading a book in which the author calls her mother a “living urban legend” because the woman woke up with a wasp in her ear. A wasp for crying out loud. This is one of my irrational fears. More specifically, having a roach crawl into my ear while I’m sleeping. I truly believe that my immediate plan of action would include jabbing an ice pick into my ear until I passed out. If I recovered, I would then have to move out of my house and/or kill myself.

I once went to an ear, nose and throat doctor who had a display case in his waiting room full of assorted things he had pulled out of people’s ears, noses, and throats. It was horrifying. There were roaches of varying sizes, corn, peas, an entire tip of a pencil, the end of a Q-tip, and a two inch long fish bone. Those are just the ones I can remember.

While we’re on the topic of things that makes me want to exfoliate with a Brillo pad, one time a spider laid eggs in the back of my friend Jennifer’s dog. Under his skin. She was petting him when she felt some wetness on his back and then started screaming when she saw what poured out of the wound. I believe she’s still seeking treatment for her Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.