This Woman Found an Earwig Inside Her Stanley Straw — Does the Brand Have a Bug Issue?

Do you remember when this woman found red oil in her Dunkin’ coffee cup? Or when this woman left a jug of water she filled from a soda machine in her car for a week and then spores started to develop. Those stories are enough to make anyone gag.

Well, here’s another gross beverage tale to add under traumatizing. One woman took a sip of water from her water bottle and let's just say that there was more than H2O in that bottle.

A woman named Rylee Peterson (@ryleepetersenn) took to TikTok to debrief us on her awful experience drinking water — a sentence that I never thought I'd be writing.

In her video, she's sitting in her car and begins to hold up her tumbler made by Stanley, a popular brand of insulated stainless steel drinkware.

“I go to take a drink from my Stanley. The first time this morning and I take a sip and there’s something like plastic-y so I spit it out,” Rylee says while making a gagging motion.

“It was literally an earwig in my straw," she exclaims.

In the video's text, Rylee writes, "My worst nightmare just came true."

She further explains that she doesn't know if she'll ever be able to use her Stanley again. "That was so disgusting," she says as she ends her video.

In the comment section, users expressed many different thoughts.

First, were the folks who were unfamiliar with what an earwig is.

"I had to google what an earwig is … this is traumatizing," penned one person. Another said: "IDK what an earwig is and I don't think I wanna find out."

For reference, an earwig is an insect with a pair of forceps at the end of its abdomen. Nicknamed pincher bugs, they are nocturnal and typically reside in dark, moist places, which as we've just learned, may include a Stanley insulated mug.

Then, there were the folks who had their own earwig horror stories. "I had an earwig inside of my sock once. Didn’t know until [I was] on my way to work and OML my shoe and sock flew off so fast," shared one woman.

Another user wrote: "Earwigs love to cause trauma bro. I still lift the bottom lid of the toilet to check for bugs bc an earwig crawled onto my leg from under it once."

A third claimed that this happened to her co-worker. "She’s traumatized. She took a sip and got an earwig. She spat puked it out. Lol," read her comment.

While Kylee's situation may seem rare, one person in her comment section claimed that her video was the second TikTok she had seen that day about someone finding a bug inside of a Stanley straw.

Upon further investigation, it became clear that this phenomenon of bugs getting stuck in Stanley straws — which are wider than regular straws— is actually a thing that several influencers have spoken about.

Influencer and host of The Really Good Podcast Bobbi Althoff previously shared a video where she found a brown recluse spider inside of her straw.

Other TikTok users have also shared disturbing videos of them discovering various insects inside their Stanley straws.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to protect your Stanley straw from any creepy crawlers. TikTok creator Claudia Walsh showed users that there are straw covers designed specifically for Stanley straws for this reason that can be purchased on Amazon. The best part? They're actually really cute and according to the reviews, very effective.

That said, hopefully, Stanley can find a way to eradicate this problem so users don't have to spend extra money on what seems to be a pretty important accessory. It's not too much to ask for drinkware that's bug-proof, right?