I can't keep quiet any longer. I'll probably get in trouble for this, but I've never been one to shy away from controversy. I am compelled to write about a little-known tragedy of Hurricane Ike. I've held my virtual tongue as long as possible and now the words must come tumbling out. Bear with me as I set the stage.
Anyone who has ever lived in or around the Houston area is familiar with our infamous flying tree roaches. Yes, that's right, I said flying roaches. It's not just a catchy name, either. They actually do fly. My first experience with said flying roaches was over twenty years ago, when we had only been in Houston for a very short time - a few months, at most. Hubby and I had finally wrangled all four of our very rambunctious children into their respective beds and had settled down in the living room to watch the latest episode of Wiseguy. (Great series, especially Season One - Sonny Steelgrave and the Mob - Ray Sharkey and Ken Wahl - man! good stuff! PS Contrary to a popular rumor going around several years ago, Ken Wahl is alive and well, just in case you were wondering) But, I digress.
Hubby and I were snuggled together on our garage-sale purchased couch, with all the lights off, watching Ken Wahl and Ray Sharkey on our Sears 19 inch television. I caught a glimpse of something in my peripheral vision, but was too caught up in Ken Wahl's simmering sexuality to pay much attention, so I ignored it. A few minutes later, a roach roughly the size of my Toyota Tercel clumbsily flew across the room, this time right in front of Ken Wahl in all his 19" glory (Get your minds out of the gutter - I'm talking about the size of the television! Sheesh!) I started ducking and weaving like a crazed woman. "What was that?!" I screamed. Turns out it was my first encounter with a genuine, welcome-to-Houston, flying tree roach.
Flash forward twenty-plus years. Flying roaches have now become just another of life's minor inconveniences after having lived among them all this time. Over time, one learns that they are particularly bad when it rains and how much of a necessity screens are for all windows. Of course, no one in Houston ever raises their windows because it's too damn hot here to have open windows, screens or no screens. With one notable exception - after a hurricane has come through and obliterated the electricity grids so that 90% of the greater Houston area is without power - in the middle of freakin' hot summer when it's boiling hot and the humidity is even worse than its usual 90% because a hurricane has just barrelled through dumping tons of water everywhere.
You may remember that my house was not in the mandatory evacuation zone, but the houses of all three of my children living in this area were indeed in said mandatory evacuation zones. So, everyone was bunched up in my small house like sardines. With no power. With the windows open. With a huge maple tree out front. Screens on all the windows, but not on the doors, which were standing open in a (fruitless) effort to create a draft. Hubby was prepared with two generators, but during the day, he used them to run our two refrigerators and one freezer. At night, we huddled in a couple of rooms and ran window A/C units so we could sleep without the sweltering heat.
All of the preceeding fancy talk has been leading up to this. Here is where the tragedy comes in. Are you ready for it? One of my son-in-laws (who shall remain nameless the same way they do rape victims to protect their privacy, okay?) was snoozing away when suddenly he was awakened by the most hideous feeling of something crawling into his ear. My daughter said he jumped up out of bed and started banging on his ear, screaming, "Get out!" When I got up the next morning, my son had a pair of tweezers digging away at NAME WITHHELD's ear, trying to remove the bug, which we all eventually started calling Doug. They had already poured peroxide, alcohol and God-only-knows what else in his ear in an attempt to flush it out, to no avail. My son was able to dislodge a leg or two and remove them, so even though we knew what we were dealing with, it was burrowed far enough down in there that it couldn't be seen by the naked eye.
NAME WITHHELD went to an urgent care clinic when some of them finally opened back up after the hurricane. They tried flushing Doug (the bug) out with gallons of water over a span of an hour and a half until finally my son-in-law was hurting so much from the treatment that he left there with Doug still in residence. After a while, his ear stopped hurting from the treatment at the urgent care clinic and he decided to leave well enough alone, assuming Doug would disintegrate and wash out in the shower over time. Not so. Apparently Doug was quite the burrower. Recently, NAME WITHHELD started having pain in his ear and trouble hearing, so he made an appointment with an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctor. This doctor, who was obviously a REAL doctor, as opposed to the doctor at the urgent care clinic, used suction and very long tweezers to finally evict Doug from his cozy home in NAME WITHHELD's ear canal.
So, now Doug is gone, or, as my daughter likes to say, "Doug is not bugging NAME WITHHELD anymore." Except she uses his real name. NAME WITHHELD's, not Doug. We don't know Doug's real name. We only know that he was one of those damnable welcome-to-Houston flying tree roaches. Ewwwwww.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the REST of the story.
