Not for the slight of stomach...

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Bug in the Face

It happened on my very first weekend in Korea (i.e. last weekend). I woke up at 08:30 when my alarm went off (I had forgot to turn it off the night before for a long day of sleeping in) and was not all that happy about being woken up. I opened my eyes in an attempt to find the culprit of my early arrival to the new day when I noticed that I was only looking out of one of my eyes. I chalked it up to the thought that I had extremely bad eye crusties in my right eye and let it be. I finally fell back to sleep in about 20 secs longing to return to my dream world of down comforters and pillow-topped mattresses (I'm still sleeping on the floor, but give me two weeks and it's "New apartment, here I come!"). Two hours later when I finally, naturally, woke up I was still having difficulities opening my right eye. I went in to rub the sleep from my eyes when I felt a sudden stab of pain in my right check above my check bone. I felt around, gingerly, to find the reason of such pain and found a bump just below my eye. This was the reason that I couldn't open my eye. "Holy crap!" I thought, "This has to be the biggest pimple of my life." My eye was swollen shut! It was as tight as a pickle jar that you need your mom, dad, and then mom again to open. I quickly ran to the bathroom to examine Ground Zero and see what could be done.

My biggest concern at this moment was not that I was not able to see, as one might think, but the fact that I had been invited out two nights earlier to hang out with my new "foreign" acquaintances (i.e. Westerners) for that night. What would they think of me with a HUGE zit on my face? It was just too embarassing to think of. Once I was in front of the mirror my worst nightmare of what this bump looked like was strengthend ten fold. There was no white head as there usually is with monstorous zits of this size. There wasn't even a slight red spot around the bump. The area from my upper lip to my eye was completely black and blue and the bump was blood red as if I had just popped it. I decided to take a hot shower to see if it might help to raise a white head and pop the blasted sucker.

During my shower I started to notice a slight discharge coming from the bump (my mirror is over the sink which I shower over). I realized it would be now or never. Just squeeze and get it all out while I can. Once again, this was one of the worst pains that I had ever experienced and I didn't feel like doing it again residing myself to just let it happen naturally and deal with the embarassment when it comes.

Just as I had come to this conclusion I noticed a white thing coming out of the puncture wound that I had inflicted upon myself. Success! Mild though it might have been, success it was! This sparked my desire to succeed and I became determined to get it all out, truly. After 30 seconds of excurciantly painful agony I went back to the mirror to check the progress. What I noticed was not a long piece of pus that usually comes out of a pimple, but a sack. A sack!? What!? Yes, indeed it was a sack. After a quick shudder throughout my body (even though it was scalding hot water) I plunged head in to get this sucker out of my face. About 10 seconds later I had removed the sack with surgical presicion that many would have been impressed by.

Upon close reflection of the sack I started to realize that this was not an inflammed oil sack that I would never get back and have to live the rest of my life with a dry spot on my face, but an egg sack. Some insect laid an egg in my face! The reason that my eye was closed was not because of my body rejecting the water or air of Ulsan, but it was rejecting the embryo of another creature. I had become a walking incubator for something without my consent. I felt so used...and I wasn't even willing to begin with!

Once the removal process was complete my face, amazingly, started going back to it's normal state. Apart from the HUGE hole left in my check there was no more swelling, bruising, or discharge. I could finally see out of my eye as well. It made for a good story later that evening and the next day of work. Many Korean women pointing and saying "What happened!?" with true concern. Now it looks just like a mark from a zit and most people don't believe my story, but for those who saw it the day of know that it was hard to make up a story like that and have a hole like that as proof.

Moral of the story: When moving to another country full of new food, people, plants, creatures, and languges....make sure you de-bug your new apartment before you sleep in it.

side note: I have come to find that almost any country in the world carries "Raid" and it's usually in English as well as the native tounge on the packaging. If you are moving somewhere...look into it.

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Comments

[Jodie]

ughhhh
I just threw up in my mouth and swallowed it.