Sometimes I have to wonder if the combination of my parent’s DNA resulted in an actual, functioning human child, or something more akin to a genetic science experiment where *something* went a little bit wrong. Everyone makes questionable choices when they’re older, but I apparently decided, I being the tiny, mom jean wearing, drunk adult pictured above, to start making them early. Allow me to elaborate further.

Out at a movie one night (The Prince of Egypt) with my dad and brother, I got bored (I guess the animated story of Moses just wasn’t really grabbing me). After bored-eating an inhumane amount of popcorn (a practice I still keep up to this day #consistency) I decided that it would be fun to stick the kernels in my ears and then dig them back out. I know, but to answer your question, no, I hadn’t accidentally/intentionally ingested any Crystal Meth. After a few successful rounds of this weird ass game, the kernel didn’t come back out. Knowing that my parent’s reaction would be less than stellar, I chose to keep this to myself, figuring that nothing “bad” could really happen from me sticking corn into my ear.

Cut to me taking a bath post movie, completely submerging my head, and successfully watering the harvest I had just planted. Not long after, s#$& started to hurt, almost like something was trying to sprout and root itself to my ear drum. I know, weird, right? I finally had to confess to my parents, and they took me to urgent care where the only thing accomplished was the doctor making my eardrum bleed. This clown concluded that my bath had “softened” the miniature replica of the “Signs” movie set I had built in the side of my head, and that it would probably just dissolve on it’s own.

Fast forward three days later (aka Christmas, can’t imagine why my parents were pissed off at me about all this) and apparently it’s harvest time, because it feels like someone is driving a tractor down my ear canal. My mom takes me to the ER where, yet again, nothing gets accomplished because anytime someone looks in the general direction of my ear (just looking, not inspecting, touching, examining, literally ) I scream like I’m being savagely beaten. They send me home, and make an appointment for me to see an ear, nose, and throat doctor two days later.

December 27th, 1997 is the day I now like to lovingly refer to as my “Exorcism Day” because apparently, the doctor at urgent care was right, my bath did soften the kernel, but instead of “dissolving” it, it just broke into pieces that were now rattling around in my head. It took four nurses to pin me down while this sadistic SOB ENT doctor shoved a camera and a vacuum down my ear, finally freeing the tiny pieces of kernel from the bastille that was my head. To the nurse I scratched and bit during my exorcism, sorry girl.

So there you have it, another tale to file away in the “But, like, Grace is actually the weirdest person I’ve ever met..” evidence box I’m sure you all keep, at least mentally. I’d also like to think that this incident is the reason I can’t really do a whole lot of math past a second/third grade level, but I’m no scientist.