The joke usually starts this way. But today it wasn’t a joke.
When I woke up early this morning, and wandered into the bathroom I noticed I had an unusual clicking noise in my ear. It was startling and it sounded loud. No pain and no apparent congestion. Very scary!
I could not seem to cause it or stop it. I woke up my husband with what must have seemed as a truly absurd request to investigate my ear. He could see nothing. The noise would come and go and I was determined to get to the bottom of it. As soon as the doctor’s office opened, I called and they agreed to see me in about an hour.
Turns out that there was a flying creature caught inside my ear. With a simple solution of warm water and hydrogen peroxide the Doctor flushed out my winged hitch hiker. Sadly he was dead by that time. I on the other hand was feeling very 
much better. I had an image in my mind born of too much Star Trek and The Twilight Zone to be comfortable in any way with a critter, no matter how benign, in my ear!
No doubt the family will debate over dinner about how much of my brain the minute beast ate–we will all laugh at my expense–but I think I’m pretty much intact. Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
I learned a new fact today: Bugs have no reverse. They can only move forward.
Once they get into a tight space, if they can’t turn around or kind of angle their way ahead, they are stuck. We, on the other hand have all the reverse we need or want. We have choices. As long as our change of mind/heart does not occur after we jumped off the cliff. It is pretty hard to “take it all back” during free-fall.
So today, a funny thing happened that I can laugh about now and I was reminded again how grateful I am that I have reverse gear. I just hope he didn’t eat so much of my brain that I can remember to take it all back before I jump off the cliff!
madalund 