Posted on 05/04/2018 6:55:55 PM PDT by EdnaMode
Last year, my husband and I purchased our first house. Lucky for us new homeowners, the house needed minimal work.
[snip]
Last month, in the middle of the night, I woke up startled. It felt like someone had placed a chip of ice in my left earhole—but it was something way worse.
I shot up out of bed, disoriented, and stumbled to the bathroom. I could feel that my ear was not right. I grabbed a cotton swab and gently inserted it into my ear to see what was up and I felt something move.
When I pulled the cotton swab out, there were two dark brown, skinny pieces stuck to the tip. Moments later, I came to the realization that they were legs. LEGS. Legs that could only belong to an adventurous palmetto bug exploring my ear canal.
I started to hyperventilate, and my husband searched furiously for his glasses and joined me in the bathroom. He looked into my ear and confirmed that there was a roach trying to burrow its way to my brain. (OK, I know the ear canal isn’t a hop, skip, and a jump away from the brain, but that’s immediately where my mind went.)
In that moment, my husband was my only hope. He grabbed a pair of tweezers, located the thickest part of the roach that was visible (I KNOW) and tried to very delicately extract it. (For what it’s worth, my husband is a professional percussionist, and all of his hand movements are very precise.)
Unfortunately, he only managed to pull two of its spiky legs off. At that point, it was clear I needed to go to the ER.
(Excerpt) Read more at self.com ...
Oh, Yes. I used to have an old farmhouse and bats were always an issue. One fall I had six of them in the house at once!
Well, seven - much later I found a dead, crispy one behind a bookcase.
It cost me close to $10K to clean, sanitize and re-insulate the attic once all the cracks were filled to stop them getting in!
*SHUDDER*
...and that’s why Flamethrowers were invented! ;)
“This Wikipedia article, as well as IMDB, say that Damnation’s budget was $17,000,000:”
Yes, and that’s the same article I used - but based on the book called Twentieth Century-Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). The figure you cited is cited in several places on the internet but not in the book. The only conclusion I can come to is that the book actually used the financial records of 20th Century Fox and, therefore, is more likely to be correct.
The comparison of Damnation Alley with Star Wars based on budget is not uncommon: https://www.popmatters.com/144633-damnation-alley-2495988495.html
As Solomon wrote:
“The only real disappointment of 1977 was DAMNATION ALLEY, a more routine post—nuclear war, science—fiction adventure which was a total loss on costs of $7.5 million. DAMNATION ALLEY, released just before STAR WARS, was the final fizzle to the standard sci—fi movie.”
In fairness, I should point out that Solomon says Damnation Alley was released before Star Wars, but the general release date was in October and one source said it was held back precisely to give more of an uplift to Star Wars in May of 1977.
In any case, Damnation Alley did not have budget twice that of Star Wars.
Never read the whole thing. See, she is cute. Nice freckles, mmmm green eyes.
I’ll just stop right there, thank you.
In addition to being pretty, she’s also got a fantastic way with words, and I really admire the way she kept her cool around those kids in the waiting room. :-)
Got halfway through the article when I realized I had my head tilted to the side, vicariously experiencing your ordeal.
I actually can. The earplugs are to drown out the wife’s snoring. They don’t block everything. I’m good.
Just like that? No condiments or sides?
Years ago we had a bat in the house. Of course it happened when my husband was out of town. My older boys were little and were first laughing as I screamed every time it swooped past me when I was trying to hit it. Their humor turned to fear as I could not stop screaming with each pass. It turned comical as I’d try to reassure my sobbing preschoolers, but would keep interrupting myself with a scream.
I finally hit it, pushed it out the door and beat it to death on the deck. I threw it and the broom into the dumpster and called the batproofers right then. I didn’t care what my frugal carpenter husband would say about being able to do it himself.
Would you have described yourself as bat $#!t crazy at that point?
Yep. I felt awful because they were so scared, but every time that d*** bat swooped by my head I absolutely couldn’t stop myself from screaming. About fifteen years ago and I can still remember it lying on its back, claws up, squeaking as I took the broom to it. (Shudder).
For months afterwards my husband would say, “ Guys, what does mommy say when she sees a bat?” just to hear them scream and shriek.
I’ve had ants crawl into my ear at night. You can hear them scratching on the rear drum. Fortunately they’re easily flushed out with an ear syringe.
Years ago I read of a woman who had ear discomfort. Her doctor found a spider had nested in her ear.
Don’t feel bad. We won’t run out of bats anytime soon!
I had to bonk a rabid Wood Chuck with a shovel once. It would’ve taken too long to get my .22 as I had three curious little boys at the time and my guns were locked up like Fort Knox, LOL!
That was not a lot of fun, but it had to be done.
I’ve also been about 10 feet from a coyote that was obviously injured, but still very much able to hurt my dog or myself. I am so THANKFUL that my Lab actually OBEYED me for a change - she was pretty freaked out, too - kinda hid behind my knees as we both slowly backed away. ;)
“Trust me; they dim noise not at all.”
Maybe they didn’t fit you. I think you’d get better results with proper use of good earplugs.
When my house flooded, all the wall board - up three feet up from the floor - had to be replaced because it got wet.
We have a great contractor but the subcontractors were led by Americans and employed illegals even though I said I wanted no illegals working on the site.
Every night I would go to the house and clean up the floors (traverteen(sp) tile) because I did not want the subcontractors to ruin the tile and they never cleaned up after themselves. One evening I arrive and find one of them had dumped their lunch trash in the wall area. I found three lunches stuffed in the walls of the house. I made the contractor check all the walls before they put up the wall board to make sure it was clear. HE FOUND MORE LUNCHES IN THE WALLS!
That is probably why she had roaches in her new house.
WOW! Dad becomes hero!!! Love this!! As a Montana girl in my youth that spent A LOT of time in the mountains there, I’m very familiar with tics and also tics and kerosene. Great story and shows how cool our dads can be—outshining the ‘well educated’ with their awesome life experience. I had a similar type Father. Larger than life to me still. So glad they got that tic out of your ear!!! :D
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