I’ve always considered myself a bit of a tomboy. But one area I’ve never been boyish about is bugs. Bugs creep me out, with spiders ranking even higher on the “make me shriek and run” scale.
As long as the bugs stay outside, with no chance of getting into my house to put their little poisoned buggy feet on my food or carry out their sinister plan of walking across my face while I sleep (because their evil little buggy brains know that I can’t prove it but also can’t disprove it and so will obsess in an unhealthy way until my head explodes), then we’re fine and our truce continues. Any bug I find in my house is at risk of dying by the shoe, if I can’t find some way to get it outside without having to touch it or get too close.
And then this knocked (well, buzzed really) on my front door:
Click on the picture to enlarge it if you dare.
For those not well-versed in bug species, that is the biggest freakin’ praying mantis I’ve ever seen in my life. It was easily half a foot long, staring at me with it’s beady eyes, daring me to try to come outside. When I moved, I could see it’s freakish head turning to watch me, plotting what it could do were I to get too close.
I didn’t go outside for the remainder of the evening.
This round goes to you, bug.
😀 bug 01, mommy 00.
reminds me of the time i saw a spider wandering around near my foot… the biggest, hairiest spider i’d ever seen. :O
That is a large insect.
But praying mantii (?) are supposed to bring good luck. And that was a big a$$ mantis.
Here’s hoping!
Ish!!! Did you hear me from Illinois shrieking as I decapitated the biggest freaking spider in the world?
We had a praying mantis like that in our apartment once when we first moved to Columbus and our cat went batsh*t insane! Apparently they’re endangered and you’re not supposed to kill them, but try telling that to a very athletic super-feline cat who is determined. to. eat. the. praying. mantis.
When we went to bed, the P.M. was blending in with our ceiling. By morning, he was dead on the floor. Poor guy.
Spiders and I are NOT FRIENDS. But the praying mantis looks kind of cool. (Of course, I say that while looking at a picture…it might be a different story if it was nearby and looking back!!)
Oh I’m with you and hate spiders which one entered our room in Arizona two weeks ago. It was a Wolf spider and huge..we had to have the hotel people come in and get rid of it…I slept with the lights on and couldn’t wait to check out..the next day. I made them spray the room that nights and still was very unsure of the other spiders which could have been there…
Regards
Dorothy from grammology
http://www.grammology.com
OMG!! Who would click to enlarge that picture??
I don’t think I can go outside for the remainder of the day now. EEK.
OK, and just so you don’t get caught unaware–these things can also leap tall buildings in a single bound!
The other day I was having lunch in my office lunchroom (9 stories up) when one landed on my window. I have no idea how it got so far up, but it was the biggest bug I’ve ever seen. Yeeeck!
speechless in a terrified kind a way – hope it does mean big luck!!!
Yuck i hate bugs hate them!
That sucker is HUGE! Maybe it blew in from some jungle with the windstorm.
Totally with ya on being a tomboy, and not a fan of bugs. I’m particular squeamish around slugs.
My husband still talks about the praying mantis he saw at our house on move-in day FIVE YEARS AGO. It was eating a moth’s head. He was tremendously impressed.
Remainder of the evening? I would be homebound forever.
My son would think that bug is awesome! He would have to tell me about how it looks just like the one in Bugs Life.
At least he wouldn’t be scared, right? Even though I would be… yikes!
I saw one that big at the convention in Denver! At Invesco stadium. Some guys were standing around in the hallway getting their picture taken in front of some Denver landmark outside, and they had found this thing on the railing, and when they saw me and the other MOMocrats I was with, they immediately called us over to try to scare us with it and impress us with their manliness by holding it and waving it in our faces. We came right up and said, “That’s AWESOME,” and laughed and pointed at the bug. Once the men realized that we were not going to reward them with girly shrieks, they very quickly tossed it out of the stadium to its certain death, revealing with the disgust in their faces that they were in fact totally wigged out by it and only showing off.
I felt sorry for the thing.
I had a pet praying mantis once.
I would still be freaked the heck out if I saw one that size in or nearly in MY HOUSE, though. Bugs are much scarier to me when they are in my house.
(I should add that my pet praying mantis was of course kept in my house, but it was very, very small, and therefore not at all intimidating. Also it died after like two weeks. Because bugs do not live very long)
I’m worse with spiders…and I can’t even smash them. I suck them up with the vacuum and then stare at it in the clear tank of the vacuum until I’m satisfied that it is dead them empty it into a plastic bag, tie it up and throw it in the garage garbage…or I flush it down the toilet if there is nothing in the vacuum to flush with it. I know…I need help.
Looks like some sort of grasshopper or praying mantis, but yeah, that dude is HUGE! Look at his eyeballs! I generally try to avoid any bug bigger than a housefly! (Butterflies are cool though. And dragon flies, I guess. Grasshoppers maybe. The green kind.)
PMs are freaky. I had a Silence of the Lambs moment the other day when I opened the cabinet door under my sink and a butterfly– not a little moth, but an actually butterfly– fluttered out. How the f* did he get under my sink??
The upside is that I caught him in an old (clean) Big Gulp cup (thinking I’d put him right outside), decided to wait until morning to show my son, and he loves, loves, loves it– even took it to school. He’s going to set it free at Grandma’s this weekend (or else I’ve got to buy a butterfly habitat…)