48) An Earwig?
One night as Jonny and I got into bed and turned out the light a bug flew into my ear. It was a horrid feeling; I could feel the trapped insect fluttering around in terror. I could both hear it and feel it inside my head and cried out in pain. Jonny put the light back on and looked into my ear to see what he could do. He could not see properly with the soft lighting of the bedroom and told me to go into the kitchen where the florescent hight was brighter, so that he could see better. In the kitchen he could see a little better but he wanted the tweezers to try and catch hold of the bug. He told me to “Just wait a minute” and went off to the bathroom to find the tweezers. The next thing I remember was coming to in my bed. Obviously the bug in my ear had affected my balance and I had collapsed onto the kitchen floor. Jonny and Jonathan, who had got up to see what was going on got me back to my bed and they were staring at me not really knowing what to do about the problem. Jonny said to Jonathan “Look the bug is going from your Mom’s left ear to the right one, see it is looking at us through your Mom’s eyes, poor thing is calling us to get him out of there” Jonathan said “Yes Dad, I can see him, he’s on his way back to the left ear now and he is shouting ‘Help me, help me, help me”. They made me laugh so much I just about forgot the discomfort I was in but we still could not get the intruder to “vacate the premises”. We though about putting some oil into my ear to flush it out but decided that the best thing would be to phone the hospital and ask them what we should do. Jonny went to the phone and got through to the emergency room. They said that it was not a good idea to put anything into my ear and advised us to turn off all the lights and to just shine a torch into my ear from a little distance and hope that the bug would be attracted by the light and come out by himself. We were advised that if he did not we should go to the hospital and let them deal with it as it was not wise to poke about in any ones ears. I don’t think they really knew what to advice and just said the first thing that came into their heads, (so now you know how to deal with a bug in your ear if it should ever happen to you.) By the time we had obtained this vital information the bug had decided that he had had enough of the game and just flew out on his own and I was glad to see him go. Jonny and Jonathan were a bit upset that I had not caught him on his way out so they could see what it was but I was just happy that he had gone. I did not care what species he was.
The next morning when I got up and went to the bathroom I was shocked to see that when I had fallen in the kitchen I must have hit my face on the side of the cupboard or something, as my eye was black and the side of my face was swollen and bruised. I had not felt anything the night before, I expect the discomfort of the thing in my ear was more that the pain in my face. We had a young couple coming to visit that afternoon, people that Jonny had met but I did not know. Jonny had been giving them a lift to work in the mornings, they were new in the country and did not have a car, so as Jonny was going into town each morning it was no problem to give them a lift. They were English speaking but were of Polish decent, a fairly newly wed couple who had just bought a house further up Alexandra Drive. When they arrived they were amazed at the mess on my face, of course Jonny had to tease them and pretend that he had just given me a hiding, they did not know him very well and were not sure how to take the joke and seemed very relieved when I explained about the insect and they realised that they had not made friends with a monster. It took a little while but my face healed well, it always amazed me that I could have fallen so hard and hurt myself so badly without having any knowledge of it.
I don’t remember the names of the couple but I do remember that his mother came to visit them once. My mother was staying with us at the time and we were invited to some function that they and their mother were attending and as my mother and his mother were of an age they got into conversation. Afterwards my mother told me that the old lady was not happy. She had come to visit her son but was not pleased with the girl he had married and managed to find fault with everything that they had done. One complaint I remember was particularly funny. She said, “They told me that they had bought a house but when I got here I found it was only a bungalow.” We really laughed at that one. Just about every house in Rhodesia at the time was a “Bungalow”. So much so that if you came across a house that wasn’t it was called a “double storey”. People just lived in single storey houses and that was the way of it, certainly nothing to turn one’s nose up at. Obviously the old girl did not think the same way as we did.
The couple eventually bought a car so we did not see as much of them but we remained friendly and when they went back to Poland on holiday they bought me a tray cloth that I still have and a small brass cowbell each for the boys. I think Dominic still has his somewhere.
The next morning when I got up and went to the bathroom I was shocked to see that when I had fallen in the kitchen I must have hit my face on the side of the cupboard or something, as my eye was black and the side of my face was swollen and bruised. I had not felt anything the night before, I expect the discomfort of the thing in my ear was more that the pain in my face. We had a young couple coming to visit that afternoon, people that Jonny had met but I did not know. Jonny had been giving them a lift to work in the mornings, they were new in the country and did not have a car, so as Jonny was going into town each morning it was no problem to give them a lift. They were English speaking but were of Polish decent, a fairly newly wed couple who had just bought a house further up Alexandra Drive. When they arrived they were amazed at the mess on my face, of course Jonny had to tease them and pretend that he had just given me a hiding, they did not know him very well and were not sure how to take the joke and seemed very relieved when I explained about the insect and they realised that they had not made friends with a monster. It took a little while but my face healed well, it always amazed me that I could have fallen so hard and hurt myself so badly without having any knowledge of it.
I don’t remember the names of the couple but I do remember that his mother came to visit them once. My mother was staying with us at the time and we were invited to some function that they and their mother were attending and as my mother and his mother were of an age they got into conversation. Afterwards my mother told me that the old lady was not happy. She had come to visit her son but was not pleased with the girl he had married and managed to find fault with everything that they had done. One complaint I remember was particularly funny. She said, “They told me that they had bought a house but when I got here I found it was only a bungalow.” We really laughed at that one. Just about every house in Rhodesia at the time was a “Bungalow”. So much so that if you came across a house that wasn’t it was called a “double storey”. People just lived in single storey houses and that was the way of it, certainly nothing to turn one’s nose up at. Obviously the old girl did not think the same way as we did.
The couple eventually bought a car so we did not see as much of them but we remained friendly and when they went back to Poland on holiday they bought me a tray cloth that I still have and a small brass cowbell each for the boys. I think Dominic still has his somewhere.
posted by JC at
11:07 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home