The other night I wanted to watch a little YouTube in bed. But M wanted to sleep. So I cracked out the earphones for the first time in an age. And found they wouldn’t go into the headphone socket. Hmm. Weird. A job for the weekend then.
Into the shed with some strong light … and I can definitely see something in there. But how to get it out. Drill bits go nowhere (by hand - I’m not risking an electric drill here 
). Fortunately though the sharp end of a screw (in a pair of pliers) shattered whatever it was so I could tap it out.
A couple more scratches, shatters and taps allows me to relax - the socket is now empty and headphones work as promised. At this point I’m wondering what kids’ toys would fit. And why they’d put anything in there. A discussion for another day perhaps.
The next week … the same thing. This time the bits came out a bit more easily. But investigation was clearly required.
So where had they come from? After a lightbulb moment I wondered … my rucksack. Wasn’t there a bag or two of silica gel in there? Aha. Yes, there was … and it had burst so there were little balls swimming around at the bottom of my rucksack.
And it seems silica balls are exactly the right size to easily slide into a 3.5mm headphone socket and absolutely refuse to come out.
Grr.