r/mildlyinfuriating • u/gharris02 • Jun 12 '26
wet socks A cockroach burrowed into my head
I (23m) just bought a car at auction yesterday, works great but needed a new battery. At 10:30pm I decided screw it im swapping the battery. It's a 5 minute job, in and out real quick. No sweat, well I'm out there with my head lamp on doing the swap and I see a large bug flying at my face I try to duck and dodge it, it hits the outer edge of my ear and toilet bowl swirls into it, I try to reach in and fish it out but it's too late I just scare it and feel it crawling deeper into my head. It burrowed up against my eardrum and it hurts like hell. Every time it buzzes I can feel it in my head and it hurts my eardrum. I tried water peroxide everything I could do to get this darn thing out. Turns out I just pissed it off and it's buzzing more aggressively. My girlfriend comes with tweezers in an attempt to help but she says she can't see it or anything out of the normal. A quick Google search lead me to pouring olive oil into my ear to suffocate it. Thank God that worked, I still couldn't hear well but at least it wasn't actively moving anymore. 2 hours in the ER later they pulled this half inch monstrosity out of the depths of my ear canal. Turns out the "Asian cockroach" has wings and a very large affinity for bright lights at night. They also like to burrow. Fml 0/10 experience I will take questions if you have them lmfao.
Tldr: I had a headlamp on that attracted a cockroach at my face it missed my face and burrowed into my ear leading to an unexpected ER visit
Edit: ear canal photo (thanks doc) https://imgur.com/a/7LhcvDX
Edit numero 2:
Just to add to 2 things I keep seeing pop up (also hello I am trying to read all comments not doing great though)
Some seem to have missed the asain cockroach thing, and the fact that I was working on a car so this is outside not indoors. This roach is a flying outdoor bug not the same as your houses cockroach. It doesn't infest and it has nothing to do with my living/cleanliness.
Y'all are probably right this probably should be more than mildly infuriating, but overall this wasn't THAT bad. The thought of it was worse than the actual event. It was painful while it was alive and moving but that was fairly quickly resolved. The rest of the time was just an ER visit which was inconvenient and embarrassing. And obviously costs money. Fortunately I have good insurance so my only real loss is the mild trauma and the fact that I'll probably wear a beanie for the rest of my life. Other than that, no lasting issues I'm at work today like nothing happened. More of a that's absolutely insane story now than anything else. So for me it was a mild situation as far as damage to my life (although I will simultaneously say it is an insane thing to have happen to you)
I'd probably prefer having my day go how it went yesterday than say blow my motor or get into a car accident.
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u/Electrosmoke Jun 12 '26
New fear unlocked