They say that the average person swallows four spiders in their lifetime while sleeping, as the unsuspecting spiders crawl into unsuspecting mouths.

Others say that “they” are just repeating an urban legend.

But I’ll tell you what isn’t an urban legend: Bugs crawling into ears while sleeping.

There’s nothing more maddening than having a bug crawling near your ear drum. It’s loud. And besides that it tickles. And no matter how hard you try you can’t shove your finger down in far enough to fish him out. Now try being awoken at 4 a.m. by that ridiculousness.

On the Internet (everyone uses Google for medical advice, right?) they tell you to be patient and wait 15 minutes for the bug to crawl around and find its way out of your ear. Yeah, right. Let the little devil do the rumba on my ear drum for 15 minutes? Not happening. He could be boring a hole into my brain during that time. (Don’t tell me it’s not possible! I got the email forward about the boy who died because ants crawled through his ear and into his brain.)

The other solution is to “stick a blade of grass into your ear and allow the bug to grab on.” Seriously. So there I am at 4 in the a.m., standing in my front yard in my underwear looking for the appropriately-sized blade of grass to stick in my ear. And now I’ve got a bug AND a blade of grass tickling my ear drum.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to predict that THAT didn’t work. And it didn’t. So finally I turned my head sideways, with my invaded ear turned towards the floor, and beat on the other side of my head with my hand. And he crawled out and flew away.

Now I’m wondering what kind of eggs he laid in my ear and what kind of hatchlings are going to be doing the rumba on my ear drum in a few days.