When I was a kid, my brother told me that spiders crawl into my ears when I sleep and lay their eggs. Every time I felt an itch in my ear, I was CONVINCED it was spiders crawling around in there. To this day, I still can't shake the thought that an itch could be a bug.
For umpire Bruce Dreckman, my nightmare became his reality...sort of. Actually, I think this might be worse.
Dreckman was working the Yankees-White Sox game when he called over the Yankees athletic trainer Steve Donohue to discuss something. Dreckman kept pointing to his ear, and eventually he and the trainer went into the dugout.
That's when things got really weird. Donohue took a look inside Dreckman's ear, but then Dreckman decided to take over. He grabbed the tweezers and PULLED A LIVE MOTH OUT OF HIS EAR.
The moth was literally still flapping its wings when it came out, which made my stomach turn about 50 times.
I'd be willing to bet neither Dreckman nor Donohue have ever experienced anything like that before, at least I hope they haven't.
Dreckman got right back into the game, joking with players about what he had just gone through.
"I didn't know what was wrong with him and he says, 'A bug just flew in my ear!'" recounted Donohue. "Naturally I'm expecting a small little gnat, a mosquito or something. So I try it with a cotton-tip applicator and nothing's coming out. And finally he's like 'Do you have [tweezers]?' I get the tweezers out of the kit and I'm starting in there a little bit and I'm like 'Look, you might wanna try this yourself 'cause I don't wanna dig too deep.' He tried it, he started feeling something, I helped him get it out."
As for the reaction of the players in the dugout? Donohue says he can't repeat the words they used to describe it.
The incident made its way around the internet, and the general consensus is that Dreckman was a badass for staying so calm.
What would you have done if a moth flew in your ear?
[H/T: Twitter]