This Month's Story

This story won’t take long to read, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

I was taking down a large fan that had covered an outside window. It was night, I was in Louisiana, and bugs attracted by my inside light were everywhere. It was hot, I was sweating, but I was almost done. I stood for a moment on the small ladder, the large fan in my hand, preparing to drop it to the ground, when a bug flew into my ear! My life changed immediately. I had a bug in my ear! Suddenly, nothing else mattered! I had a bug in my ear!

I dropped the fan and ran inside! I had to remove that bug from my ear! I ran from room to room. I had to remove that bug from my ear! As I ran, I spotted my car keys on a table. I snatched them and ran outside to the car. I had to remove that bug from my ear! In seconds, I had started the car and backing out into the street, started to a hospital several miles away. I had to remove that bug from my ear!

I don’t remember much about the ride except that I was going over the speed limit and I was not stopping for stop signs or stoplights. I had to remove that bug from my ear!

When I got to the emergency room at the hospital I pushed aside the two large entrance doors, ran into the larger emergency room proper, screaming, I HAVE A BUG IN MY EAR!

This was long ago, but even then I was startled by the response to my yell. Two of the room’s staff grabbed me and forced me to sit down on a nearby chair. Another person held my head still, while still another held a flashlight to my ear.

I immediately became quiet. I had a bug in my ear and I was in the hands of professionals. No matter that my whole body was screaming, I told myself they would get the bug out; I was safe.

Now let me digress a bit. Although I didn’t know it at the time, people with bugs in their ears is a problem well known to police and medical professionals. The problem is more widely dispersed than most people know. It has been responsible for many accidents and even deaths. It seemed the movement of the bug in the person’s ear cuts apart any coherent thought in the persons mind. In essence, a person with a bug in his ear is, for all intents and purposes, momentarily insane. That night, in the brightly lit Emergency Room being held down by strong emergency staff, I was one of those persons.

Let me pause and jump ahead for a moment. Don’t worry; I’ll come back to my being in the chair in a moment.

It turned out the flashlight gambit did not work and I was then made to lie on a hospital bed where hot oil was poured into the offending ear, killing the helpless bug. Then a doctor, with a thin, long pair of forceps plucked the dead bug out. I became sane again!

The doctor smiled happily, I smiled happily, everyone smiled happily. I drove home later much slower than I had earlier, stopping at all the stop signs and traffic lights.

Oh yes, let me go back to that moment when I was being held to a chair and a flashlight was being held to my ear. A time when everyone was assuring me that I was to remain calm and everything would be alright.

Despite my being impaired by the monster in my ear, I felt there was something wrong.

Finally, I screamed: THAT’S THE WRONG EAR!!!

They stopped, looked at each other and quickly moved the flashlight to the correct ear. But as I said earlier, that didn’t work either and I was moved to the bed and given their back-up ‘hot oil’ treatment.

That worked.