When I was younger, I lost a pair of trousers.

I must have been about 13 or 14. I came home from school, got changed out of my uniform, and headed off to do whatever it was 13 or 14 year olds did after school in them days (probably burning stuff or shooting cows with BB guns or something). The following morning, however, as I was getting ready for school, I discovered my trousers had vanished. A quick check confirmed that they weren’t in the wash or anything – they’d just absolutely, totally vanished. Of course, my mum naturally refused to believe that they’d just disappeared; she got it into her head that I’d obviously ripped them or something and thrown them away before she found out. Which I felt was quite unfair, because I hadn’t.

To this day, the mystery of the disappearing trousers remains unsolved.

Anyway, I recount this story because last night, I was party to another unusual and slightly disquieting disappearance: that of my earplugs. In and of itself, that’s not too unusual – I lose earplugs all the time, being small and rolly things as they are. What made last night’s disappearance is the fact that I was wearing them at the time.

Ever since my bout of chronic insomnia a couple of months back, I’ve taken to wearing earplugs in bed a few nights a week – sometimes the noise of my computer humming and the traffic on the road outside get a little too annoying and I need to shut out all external distractions. Last night was one of those nights. So, before commencing my occasional battle with the demons of insomnia, I stuck the little foam-rubber plugs in my ears and settled in for as good a night’s sleep as I could hope for. Thankfully, the double measure of Old Pulteney before bedtime meant that I drifted off fairly quickly (and also probably accounts for the storming headache I have this morning).

As I awoke this morning, I was aware that something wasn’t quite right. My ears felt funny. Like, something was missing… Ah, yes! My earplugs weren’t there. They must’ve fallen out in the night, or something. I had a quick search around my pillow, which is where they’d normally be. They weren’t there. I looked around, under and behind my bed, inside the folds of the duvet, under my pillow – nothing. My earplugs had completely disappeared – and this can only lead me to one satisfactory conclusion: My ears ate my earplugs.

The X-File have got nothing on my life, I tell you.

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