Sunday, June 11, 2006

This Post Is Not About Bon Jovi

I was all set for the next post to be a witty and entertaining story of the adventures of Buni and Alice and their Bon Jovi concert attendance.

That was until a bug flew in my ear.

People, a bug flew in my ear.

It did not hover in the perimeter of my ear area. It did not do an uncomfortably close fly-by that freaked me out. It did not fly into my hair and get stuck.

A bug just flew into my ear. Into the inside of my ear. As in, there was a bug in my head.

Now you might be the most rational and calm and able to deal with a crisis person in the world. But I defy you to remain calm when a bug flies into your ear. It's just not possible.

It's not just freaky because you're aware of the bug on a logical level, and it's icky. It's freaky because you can hear the wings flapping inside your head. INSIDE YOUR HEAD. And that is a level of freakoutedness that I had not believed possible, until I achieved it moments ago.

My first instinct was a "get it out get it out get it out get it out" panic that had me scratching and poking and trying to get the bug out. That didn't do anything, and the bug was clearly panicking as the wing flapping was very intense and frequent. My freaking out only increased with the bug's panic levels, so I raced to the bathroom to try and use a Q-Tip to extricate the bug. That was also unsuccessful. Also unsuccessful was banging the other side of my head, as if I had water stuck in ear, and not a living, breathing flapping bug.

I was practically in tears at this point, so decided to call NHS Direct to see if they had any protocol on getting bugs out of people's ears. Maybe there's a system. I don't know. I've never had a bug in my head before.

Imagine, if you will, my panic increasing and freakoutedness reaching startling new levels as I proceed to do the following: start up the computer, open Explorer, Google "NHS Direct", call, listen to the huge introduction message, get disconnected, call again, listen to the huge message again, get put on hold, and finally speak to someone.

She refused to talk to me, because I don't know the number I am calling from. They need a call-back number apparently. And yes, perhaps I should know my own home number by heart, but I never call it! Or give it out to people! Or really use the phone for anything except ordering takeaway food.

Anyway, she wouldn't help me, so I hung up in disgust.

By this point, the flapping had slowed. It was now a long pause, feeble flap, long pause pattern, rather than the short pause, intense burst of speedy flapping, short pause that was FREAKING ME OUT.

And then the the flapping stopped.

So, you know earlier, when I was all "I had a bug in my head"? That was misleading.

The truth is I have a bug in my head.

But I think it's dead now, so hopefully I can get some sleep.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This might make me slightly evil but that has to be the funniest thing I've read in a while. Seriously; tears.

Brad

Anonymous said...

.... pretty sure this was a movie starring Martin Short....

Joce.
ps, hope it's out!

Dory said...

Sorry you had a bad experience with NHS Direct. Usually, we take telephone numbers as most of the time, nurses have to phone people back due to the volume of calls waiting to be assessed (particularly evenings and weekends). If a caller does not know their number however, it is arranged for them to speak to a nurse straight away. Incidentally, unless you have barred the number from appearing on caller display, it should appear on the call handler's screen, so they could have taken it from there.

I don't know why the call handler refused to deal with your call, this shouldn't have happened.

Dory
(Health Info Advisor for NHS Direct)