Do Earwigs Go In Your Ear?

Well the answer to this is age old question is a complete and resounding YES. Earwigs have been documented to go in peoples ear cavities and cause big problems. Now, let me ask you this; Do people win the lottery? The answer is of course also YES and in fact it happens everyday. That said, I personally don’t know of any and in my life I’ve played the government sanctioned gambling game many times and it’s never amounted to anything except my wallet being lighter. How about this. Do birds accidentally fly into buildings? The answer to this is also YES but is it a regular everyday thing? How many times have you actually seen this happen? Would you be surprised to know that this occurs millions of times per year? That’s a lot of dead birds and I doubt you thought the numbers would even come close to that. With that many birds dying one would think this was an epidemic yet it doesn’t get near the traction that the earwig story gets. It’s a big world and this daily carnage of birds hardly puts a dent in the population and since it really doesn’t affect you it’s probably only a sad thought and then forgotten if you see one on the sidewalk. Earwigs on the other hand, only need one unfortunate person to plague and the world hears about three times over before you know it.

I do know personally of a customer who had a bug (it was a roach) in her ear and like the lotto, she had less money at the end of the

painful ordeal. Does this mean this is a regular occurrence? You’d think so when you surf around the forums and read the many comments people post. Frank is one such gentleman who commented on my article The Legend of The Earwig and he even sent me pictures and an article that backs up his claim. Is Frank hallucinating, I think not. In truth I know for a for a fact that insects of all kinds have crept into peoples ears, mouth, nostrils-eh’ ehmm- I’ll leave it there but you get the picture. This has happened throughout history but for some reason when it comes to folk lore and exaggerated stories, the earwig has been chosen as the vehement devil that creeps along in the night looking for some poor souls brain to infest.

The truth of the matter is Frank and perhaps 1000’s of others are truthful when they tell their unfortunate story. Earwigs are nocturnal wanderer’s always looking for food. This scavenging bug has no real ‘super sensor’ that sniffs anything out so it can really only be attributed to dumb luck that it finds your ear and crawls in. (kind of like the lotto) It can’t really tell the difference between your ear cavity and a crack in the baseboard. To the earwig it’s what they do, they hunt and peck and live most of their lives in secluded spots so your ear or mouth is really no different. The horrible experience for a few is real, the doctors are there and usually have to poke and prod as the bug is only protecting itself trying to get deeper in and in the end a mangled up insect is removed. I hate to use the word anecdotal because for someone to whom this has happened to it is a very vivid problem that all should be aware of. But in the grand scheme of things and the

amount of people and earwigs there are on this planet it is no more than just an isolated incident. If however earwigs ever do get a taste for brains, they will at that time have a feast and we’ll have a bona-fide legend.