You See What Had Happened Was

In college my friends and I always knew we were in for a fun ride when someone started a story with the line, "You See What Had Happened Was..." Usually the story that was told would have us rolling on the floor laughing our butts off (ROFL). So when I said those words and told my college friends the story I'm about to tell you now, I thought they would never stop giggling. This is a long one so stick with me :)

A few short years ago when I was just a wide-eyed, naive girl of fifteen, I spent most of my time talking to my now ex-boyfriend AJ*on the phone. I don't know why we spent so much time on the phone. I guess it was because we liked to discuss things like how parents were so overrated & stupid, and how we were soul mates destined to be together like forever. Totally.

My ear started itching with such intensity that it could not be ignored. I was too lazy to go to the bathroom and get a q-tip, so I grabbed a mechanical pencil from the nightstand and scratched. The eraser decided it would be a fun to lodge itself into my ear. And just like it was sealed with crazy glue, it got very stuck. I tried everything. I tried using my finger, I tried using sharp objects to snag it, and I even tried submerging my ear in water to loosen it up. I even smacked my head hard enough a few times to rattle around my brain so hard that I killed brain cells, but it did nothing to solve the problem.

For a whole day and a half I told absolutely no one. I decided I could just live with an eraser stuck in my ear for the rest of my life. I was that embarrassed. But it slowly started to impair my hearing and get infected. So with big crocodile tears in my eyes (the type of tears only a 15 year old drama queen can cry) I confessed the problem to AJ.

And God bless his soul, because he did not laugh. Not even one giggle. I would have laughed at him, I can promise you that. Instead he just told me if I did not tell my mother right away what was going on, he would. So at 2 in the morning, I sheepishly woke my mom up to inform her, "I have no idea what, but I think there is something stuck in my ear." Of course I knew what was in my ear, and how it had gotten there. But I was keeping my lips sealed for as long as I could.

There were several embarrassing moments at my hometown hospital that night. I had to tell the secretary, nurse, and two doctors what had happened. And to top it off, every time that they tried to move the eraser it hurt so bad that I would scream bloody murder. And with all the screaming I was doing, they had to stop trying. So they decided to send me to the much bigger hospital in Huntsville to handle it. I was mortified to have to tell even more secretaries, nurses, and doctors what I had done all over again. Most of them kept repeating the question, "And your how old?" and giving me that look that says the public school system has really failed you hasn't it?

The main doctor finally got the bright idea to use medicine to numb my ear canal and then remove the culprit. To this day, I still believe him to be the most intelligent man I've ever met. After the ordeal, I was given the eraser and allowed to take it home in a medical waste bag. I thought about keeping it for show and tell but thought better of it. And I promise I did end up throwing it away eventually.

When I told my college friends this story, they found it so funny because I forgot to mention what age I was when I first started telling the tale. So when I got to the point in the story that AJ made me tell my mother, they stopped me mid-sentence and exclaimed, "Boyfriend! Exactly how old were you?" And I told them and they ended up torturing me about it for the last few years.

This is because children are notorious for getting themselves into pickles, eating/drinking things they shouldn't, and getting things stuck in places they don't belong. But this is supposed to stop once puberty sets in. So when a teenager does do something like this it's pretty shocking.

But there are a few lessons that can be learned from this story:

1. Don't tell your friends anything that you don't want to be teased about for the rest of your life.
2. Don't stick anything in your ear that is smaller than your elbow.
3. Mechanical Pencils are evil.
4. Just get up off your lazy behind and grab a Q-tip for goodness sake!



*Names have been changed to protect the not so innocent.