Working in a hospital I know that people, especially kids but not exclusively kids, put things in strange places. The nose and ear are the areas where foreign objects are most often placed by children.

Strange things get in our ears and noses by no fault of our own as well. Medical literature is full of reports of insects crawling into or nesting in peoples ears. One recent case was newsworthy - In May an Albany Ore child had a spider the size of a pencil eraser in her ear. She had to go to the doctors office to have it removed.

The child, Jesse Courtney, was no worse for wear and thought the whole experience was kind of cool even bringing the then dead spider to school to show it off.

Apparently in 1993 there was a British machinist who had bad earaches. It was found that he had a pregnant spider living in his ear. He ended up keeping the spider as a pet once it was extricated from his ear.

McMoose?

Single college moose seeks fun, attractive moosette

A moose that wandered onto the Northern Michigan University campus and broke a dormitory window might have been looking for love in all the wrong places.

City police chased the animal away one evening last month after the incursion at Magers Hall, Detective Capt. Mike Angeli said. It was unclear whether the moose got inside the building.

“It’s not unusual for a moose to do something like this now,” said Dean Beyer, a Michigan Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist who has an office at Northern Michigan. “We’re in the middle of the mating rut right about now.

“Moose, especially a young bull moose, will move long distances,” he said. “They could be searching for a cow to mate with, or simply be a young bull dispersing after being chased away from its herd and looking for a new home range.”

We’ve had experience with moose wandering over to our cottage and looking in the windows, but none have ever managed to get inside. Moose are huge animals, I certainly wouldn’t want one wandering around my rooms, particularly if it were rutting season.