Stop Bugging Me!

I’m sitting on my deck innocently trying to catch up on my blog reading when all of a sudden I feel something on my foot. I writhe a bit and let out my typical I-can’t-get-this-off-of-my-body-soon-enough squeal as I swat whatever creature has decided to land on me away. But…oh no…this thing doesn’t move. BECAUSE it’s a huge frickin’ insect that has apparently attached itself to my foot with its sticky clawed legs. Ugh. Most of you are not aware that I am plagued by Insectus Giganticus Syndrome. I blogged about it last year here.

Now, I can handle bugs - most bugs, that is. I’ve lived in apartments above bars/restaurants before and was accustomed to having cockroaches crawl about my body whilst drunkenly passed out on my futon…and was also accustomed to watching said insects scurry in swarms down my drain when I turned on the kitchen light. No big deal.

Here’s the problem. I live in New York…not Florida, not Arizona…not in a state that is commonly known for LARGE, mutant insects. If a bug is larger than my thumb then there’s a problem. It should be living in another state. Not here.

So, when I go to swat this insect off of my foot and feel its sticky, squishy body, I, of course, investigate. To my shock and horror it is some horrific, prehistoric looking thing. It plays dead as I remove it from my foot.

It’s just nasty, nasty…would you want that mofo clinging to your foot? I think not.

The dogs hear me freaking out so they come to investigate.

Ridley starts salivating immediately (you can see little specks of dog spit on the deck) because he loves bugs and thinks he’s about to have a meal.

I love this photo - he thinks if he looks at it out of the corner of his eye the bug won’t notice him.

The dogs LOVE bugs. Ridley has been known to play with cicadas for hours and hours…just watching them flutter and hiss and spin. Ick. Gus, he likes the big, nasty scarab beetles that somehow find their way into my house. He got one last week and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why he was foaming at the mouth. My daughter yelled, “Oh no, he has rabies”. Um, no. Eventually, I found the culprit. Another fine black scarab specimen.

The first such scarab that we found in the house was captured, put in a jar and fondly named “Midnight”. My daughter insisted we keep him/her. I, of course, refused. We set it free in the back yard as she cried, “Goodbye, Midnight, I’ll miss you.” Goodbye is right. And don’t come back.

A few months later I stumbled upon an Oleander Hawk Moth. Now, the moth was not as bad. It was quite interesting and I even let the thing crawl around on my hand for a photo op.

THAT was a BIG frickin’ insect. Just look at the wing span!

And then there were the cicada killer wasps. *Gulp* I seriously thought that I had stepped into “Land of the Lost” when I walked into my kitchen one evening to find a wasp the size of a small bird swooping around the ceiling. My first instinct was to run like hell. But I was in my own home, where would I go?

Nope, that’s not my hand holding the nasty wasps…are you kidding? I will only go so far for the sake of a photo op…and holding giant wasps would be going too far for this damsel.

Now, I will say that I don’t really like to kill bees of any sort but the first time I encountered the cicada killer wasp I was so panicked that I grabbed a broom and a can of bug spray and shot the sucker out of the sky then beat it with a broom. I was literally shaking…and trying to figure out why my house had been selected for this mutant insect experiment conspiracy.

That was not the only cicada killer wasp incident. I still get them every so often. But at least now I know what they are so I stifle the scream and just deal with them.

The bug this evening was not that big compared to what I’ve witnessed in the past. It was just…nasty looking, plus it was crawling on my leg and it had no business doing that. Eeeewwww.

I let the pooches play with it - only because I wanted to get some interesting photos to share with you so you, too, can be creeped out. You’re welcome.

It didn’t flutter, didn’t hiss, didn’t flop about. It just played dead so they lost interest and I took a stick and swatted it into the yard. Ick. No more big bugs, please. I’d be very happy if I didn’t see another insectus giganticus this year.