h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I agree with you on the earwig/chocolate button thing but something happened to me recently which plunged me into the depths of confusion and forced me to sit and try to figure it out for a several days, on oppening a packet of my favourite chocolate buttons i discovered (as well as the chocolaty goodness) a dead earwig, of more precisely half an earwig after shoving a handfull gobwards, i finished the chocolate, which chuffed me but the earwig thing discusted me, this state of cuffnes/disgust was what perplexed me and i was forced to buy several more packets.

God I hate that. They (earwigs) get everywhere don't they?
I have a friend that was clambering along the side of an old
camper van once, using that little guttery thing that runs
along between the roof and the side (you know what I mean?) to
hold himself up when - guess what - yup, an earwig impaled
itself into his thumb by those two little pointy things that
they have. I had to pull it out and throw it away while he
screamed and thrashed. We were both v.young at the time.
It scarred me.

Have you ever found one (an earwig, not a chocolate button)
asleep inside your toothbrush bristles? I haven't, but my
friend has (the same one as mentioned above). Now THAT is
scary.

If I told you my joke about the earwig football team, would it help or would it just make things worse?

Here it is anyway, you don't have to read it if you don't want to!

It's half time in the insects' cup final. Woodlouse Wanderers are beating Earwig Utd 3-0. The earwigs' coach is furious, and tells them so in the changing room during the break. "You lot are useless!" he squeaks. "I might as well just bring in a team of earwigs off the street, they'd be no worse than you!"

At that moment, another earwig crawls out of a tiny crack in the floorboards. "Can I play for you?" he squeaks.

The manager looks at him with his little earwiggy eyes. "You might as well," he says. "Only problem is, we haven't got a shirt for you, and all the numbers are taken."

"No problem," says the earwig, "just paint a zero on my back."

The manager does so, and sends him out. Within 30 seconds, the number 0 player has scored. Ten minutes later, he gets a second. With five minutes remaining, he scores the equalizer. Then, seconds before the full-time whistle, he bangs in a fourth and Earwig Utd win the cup 4-3. The crowd goes wild, and the team lift the number 0 onto their earwiggy shoulders and parade him round the stadium, while the delighted crowd sings:

"Earwig O, earwig O, earwig O...."

It made things worse. In fact, I showed the joke to my fiancee last night, and something lodged deep within her unconscious mind. Because, early this morning, she dreamed that she found a nest of earwigs lurking and teeming and seething in her wardrobe, and one of them leaped up and bit her with those horrid pincer things. So thanks VERY much.

thats a joke? please kill me now

I agree. It doesn't do to take these beasts lightly. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we never hear from E Vibenstein again. He was probably visited in the night by a crawling nightmare which lodged inside both his ears and feasted it's way deep into his brain. It would have been a pincer movement in more than one sense.

You shouldn't have bought several more packets - I'm sure if you'd taken them back to the shop that the manufacturers would have bought you many more packets themselves in an effort to bribe you into not informing the environmental health or whatever it was. I once had some orange juice that was bereft of insects but which had fermented in an interesting and slightly hallucinogenic way. I would have taken it back but felt it would have been ungrateful.

I apologise unreservedly for any offence, distress or chewing your own leg off which my strained attempt at humour may have caused. Now can someone PLEASE get this thing out of my head?

no you should have patented it, then sued the juice company.

The only way I've found to lure an earwig out of someones head is to place a strategic chocolate button just inside either ear (preferably the one used by the 'wig to gain access). Wait until the wee beasty has come out and gorged itself. It will usually curl up just inside the ear to sleep. Use a finger to prise it out, crush it, then eat whatever is left of the button. I hope my advise is not too late.