Creepy Crawlies

I don’t consider myself to be a squeamish person...possible nocturnal campground encounters with Bigfoot notwithstanding.  Most creepy crawly things don’t bother me.  Bats are okay as long as they are outside.  If they came in my house, I might freak out, but I’ve never had to test that theory.

Same with snakes.  I think they are interesting in their display cases at Oxbow Zoo, but if there was one coming at me in its natural habitat, I might freak out.

Spiders...well, it depends on what kind. The daddy longlegs that I find in the bathtub now and then are harmless.  However, several years ago when we rented pasture land from a neighbor and had to walk the fence cutting down weeks--that would be a 5-strand barbed wire fence--we ran into some of those nasty black spiders with the yellow spot or stripe on the back.  Yeah, everybody but Captain vaulted OVER the fence.  I’d have gone right through the dang fence if I’d needed to.  Eeeeeuuuwww!

Now mice, they don’t bother me at all.  I know a lot of women who jump on chairs and scream bloody murder at the sight of a mouse.  My first reaction is Well you little stinker, where did you come from?  And then I set out traps.  The spring that Princess graduated high school, we had some mice in the house, so I set some snap traps.  Those little critters were sneaky and would get the peanut butter (yes, this works better than cheese) off the trap and never trip the trap.  

Undaunted, I set a series of traps along the wall beneath the picture window, behind the entertainment center, and behind the couch.  No sneaky little rodent was going to get the best of me!  

There I was watching TV one night, and Mr. Mouse comes scurrying at warp speed along the wall beneath the picture window.  As I watch him approach the first trap, he skids to a screeching halt, stopping a whisker-breadth away from the trap.  He takes a minutes to observe the trap ahead, then beats a retreat to think about it.

Next thing I see is Mr. Mouse stealthily sneaking along the wall.  He skirts around the first trap, narrowly avoids the second trap, and completely misses the third trap.  What the fudge?!  Now it’s war.  

I upgraded from the snap traps to the glue traps.  I put the blob of peanut butter smack in the center of the trap and set them out.  No way could Mr. Mouse get to the PB without stepping in the sticky part of the trap.  And that stuff sticks, let me tell you!  Ask Dipstick, who laid in one once and had it stuck to his side for about a week.  Brogan--1; mouse--0.  

Anyway, so creepy crawlies.  The one thing that will make me lose my mind in terror is grasshoppers.  When I was a kid, Dad grew oats that had to be stored in the grain bin.  It was my job to get up in the gravity box and push all the oats down toward the door where they then went into the auger and finally into the grain bin.  Oats are loaded with grasshoppers, and by the time I would finish emptying the wagon, I had grasshoppers in my hair, up my pants legs, and down my shirt.  The boogey woogey bugle boy had nothing on me trying to dance those suckers out of my clothes.  

By now, most of you have probably seen the picture I posted yesterday of the grotesque giant grasshopper that was on my bedroom wall, but here’s a refresher look.

That thing was FREAKING gross! When I saw that, my heart almost stopped. Since I didn’t have a bazooka laying around to kill it with, I got my trusty fly swatter (on sale at Menards, thank you very much).  It took me 30 seconds to even get close enough to swing with the swatter because I didn’t know if it was going to jump or fly at me, which would have just put me on the floor in a puddle of panic.  Finally screwed up my courage and took a swing.  I killed it dead as Moses with the fly swatter, but then the dead carcass came flying off the wall right at me.  I’m not too proud to admit I screamed like a little girl. It landed on the floor, so I threw a towel over it and stomped on it half a dozen times just to make sure it was really dead because you never know with those nasty, evil things. I ran out of the room whimpering and made Captain dispose of the body.  It’s been 24 hour and I still have the willies.  

As I read this over, I realize I need to revise my original statement to:  Damn right I am squeamish about creepy crawly things!!