How to remove a moth from your ear-Zion Trip style-2021
In May and June of 2021, I took this epic 16-day-long birthday trip to Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. On this trip, I visited seven national parks, three state parks, and other out-of-this-world places. This, by far, has been one of the most memorable trips I have taken to date. The scenery is phenomenal, the challenge unexpected, and the people fascinating. I will do a blog on each of the national parks later. Let me get to the climactic part of the story, where a moth got stuck inside my ear.
Zion National Park has mixed reviews. I have heard it is the most impressive national park ever, and I have also been told it's just Disneyland for adults, and my thoughts are that it is both. Either way, Zion is simply beautiful and majestic. I opted to spend 3 days and 2 nights there during my birthday trip, hiking, camping solo, and thoroughly enjoying nature.
Let me set the stage: I arrived in Zion late afternoon, a day after my birthday. Since it was too late to do a hike because I missed the last shuttle, I went to the visitor’s center to collect intel on the hike I wanted to do the following day, it was going to be the Narrows or Angels Landing since there was no flash flood for the next day I choose to do the Narrows. I will go into an entire post about the Narrows, but it is a 10-mile gorge and the narrowest section of Zion Canyon. I woke up at 4:45 am to drive to the Visitor's Center, hoping to catch the earliest bus into the park. Eventually, I arrived at Narrows and spent the day hiking.
On the way back from my hike, I re-encounter three guys I had met in Bryce Canyon National Park the day before. I will also do a post about that, Bryce. If you have ever been to Zion, you know thousands and thousands of people enter this park each day. To randomly have re-encountered these guys was incredible. What were the chances I would run into them again? Also, one of the guys had the same birthday as me. We chatted briefly, and then we parted ways again. Later that night, however, I ran into them a third time within 24 hours as I was hiking up to the Canyon overlook. We chatted briefly and joked that we should play the lottery. An innocent, funny, and weird coincidence, I thought, but little did I know that later that evening, this chance encounter would be a foreshowing of my night to come…….
After my exciting sunset hike, I returned to my campsite for the night. I packed up my campsite because I knew I was getting up early to leave, and I didn’t want to deal with taking down camp. Once I finished organizing everything, I curled up in my sleeping bag in the back of my rental SUV. As I tried to relax, waiting for the light to go off in my SUV, I saw a moth fly straight to the light. I thought nothing of it and figured the moth eventually would chill once the lights were off.
Boy, was I wrong!! The moth landed on me, but I quickly brushed him off. That's when all hell broke loose. The moth became agitated, and before I could intercept it, it flew directly into my right ear.
I freaked out and started to shake my head to get him out. That didn’t work. I tried to dig him out with my nails as I tried to find my keys to unlock my car since I had locked myself in. I couldn’t, so in desperation, I opened the door, and my car alarm went off just as other campers were trying to either sleep or quietly drink at their campfires. After fumbling around, I eventually shut off the alarm and ran to the campsite in front of me. Frantically, I begged innocent bystanders for a Q-tip. The campers I encountered probably thought I was going nuts; half of the group shut up in shock or disbelief as I told my story, while the other half realized I was serious and needed help.
Thirty minutes later, the moth was still there. At this point, I'm sure you all are wondering if I felt the flying critter in my ear. The answer is YES! YES….I felt that fucker in my ear, and yes, the moth was pissed as it tried unsuccessfully to fly out. I was freaking out and trying to scratch my ear, hoping it would leave my ear canal.
So…how does one get a moth out of one's ear, you probably wonder? That is a great question!! Well, let me tell you what doesn't work. Holding a light to one's ear to lure the moth out DOES NOT WORK! Shooting water in one's ear with a clean syringe also DOES NOT WORK in the first 6 tries. Using vegetable oil, hoping the moth would slip out of the ear canal also DOES NOT WORK! Also, losing one's shit in such a situation DOES NOT WORK!
I was growing impatient very quickly. I tried to keep it together and use my yoga breath to calm down, but this moth was still in my ear, batting his wings, seemingly in no rush to leave. It was almost like he didn’t want to go, like seriously, did he NOT have an oh shit moment like I had? Oh shit, I am stuck in a human’s ear canal??? Come on, little guy, come on!
As I sat on a bench in the middle of strangers' campgrounds, I apologized to the poor guys and girls helping me. At this point, three campsites were helping me (a Mormon, 5 or 6 guys, and 3 or 4 girls). Finally, one of my fellow campers said, "Let me try with the syringe again; I have experience with one since I have a lot of earwax. This will not feel good, but I know the angle to get him." At that point, I would have done almost anything to get this moth out; I told them they had permission to do whatever they needed. Also, in moments of crisis, you learn about people… who knew he had to do this to their own ears!
Then my fellow camper took the same syringe that had, by this point, been in my ear 6 other times and was now part of my body! While my head was pointed to the ground, for the 7th time, he took the syringe from a different angle. Yep, he was right; this time, it was not pleasant--not like the other attempts to dislodge the moth were either-- but this one sucked the worst.
And then…. there was no movement in my ear. For a few minutes, I could not tell if the moth was still in my ear or not since my ear canal was still flooded with water. Finally, the water came out, and there was still no movement; but I had a gut feeling he was still in my ear since the moth was on the ground. I had a moment of “SERIOUSLY, LITTLE DUDE! MY EAR ISN’T YOUR HOME!
The Mormon looked in my ear and saw the top of the moth sticking out. Suddenly, in a mix of anxiety, excitement, wonder, and wanting this field surgery to be over, everyone was scrambling for a tweezer; I yelled, "PULL IT OUT!!!!!!" He pulled – and finally, FINALLY, the moth was dislodged. By a miracle, he was fully intact. All it took were tweezers and pain.
Fun side note, we could have eliminated all of this if the Mormon used the tweeters from the beginning since he could see the moth, but no…we had to take the more brutal way because he didn’t feel comfortable putting tweeters in my ear.
Never in my life had I been happier than at that moment. To celebrate our successful field surgery in the middle of nowhere, the guys offered me a beer, to which I gave an emphatic “Fuck yes!” I took a couple of heavy chugs, letting them sink into my stomach and hoping it would quickly calm my still ramped-up nerves. A few minutes later, as we stood around in celebration, one of the guys in the group said to me, "Hey -- you are that girl!" I asked, "You need to be more specific?" The camper expanded on his question and asked if I had been in the Grant Tetons a week and a half ago: "You were on the trail with us as we were looking at a……. I jumped in and said, "A marmot!"
At that moment, I confirmed that his suspicions were correct- -I was indeed that girl. This broke the ice even more, and we continued to chat further about our experience in Grand Tetons. During our conversations, one other guy admitted that they thought I was overdramatic about the moth until they realized I required help. At one point, I watched one of the men slowly pull up their hoodie and tie it tight so a moth could not fly into their ears ha-ha.
The universe can be funny at times. Twice in one vacation, I had re-encountered two different groups of people I never once expected to see again. Further, the last group, total strangers, had come to my rescue when I needed it most. I learned from this experience that the universe will teach you lessons you need to know and give you the experiences you need most (though not always at convenient times). She also will put you in the path of people who can help you, even when you are seemingly out of options. I find it ironic that I ran into those three guys in 24 hours and then a group of guys from Grant Teton a week and a half after that hike. You never know who you will run into and who you will need help from.
The night of the moth extraction, I stayed up bullshitting with the guys and the girls in the campground until almost 2 am. Who knew I could bring three different campsites together for over a moth! I had such a good time that I woke up “late” (7:45 am) the following day for my hike and missed my opportunity to arrive in the park before other hikers. At that point, however, it didn't matter. I had found comfort and help when I needed it most, and I was happy to bond with total strangers over having overcome the seemingly least probable event ever.
As I awoke the following day, I saw the group of guys who had helped me the night before was gone. They drove to Vegas early that morning to fly back to the East Coast. Maybe one day, I will run into these guys and thank them for their help. If not, I will always be in their life, known as the girl who had a moth stuck in her ear, and I will always have this story to tell.