My little brother used to spend the first fifteen minutes of his day itching all over, and when we would impatiently tell him to get ready for school already he would whine, "but MO-OOM, I have the ITCHIES!" and everytime I think of it I think of bugs. So during a meaningful conversation with my significant other, we were talking about how much we hate bugs. As if, together, we are a super bug-hating machine. But then I realized two things:
1. NO ONE really likes bugs.
2. I must be the most boring girlfriend to talk to
Then I remembered my summer in eastern Tennessee for an internship and how it was Danielle vs. Wild every single day in my humble abode. If you've never been to Tennessee before, let me tell you, it's not called 'Tennessee rain' for nothing, it's so humid all the time and it rains almost weekly. Bugs love moist places. That being said, throughout my stay I realised I had never really seen bugs until I went to Tennessee. Note that these are in ascending order of hate:
Mosquitos
These things are everywhere and I've run into them before, I just never knew these guys could attack in numbers. They also love drinking and carry a lot of diseases, which, in addition to the first two things, make them the sorority girls of the insect world, only better looking. One or two bites aren't too bad, but four or six is just awful. Have you ever sat in on a meeting and tried fighting the urge to scratch both of your knees furiously?
The Wolf-Spider and her Babies
Imagine sitting down to your $1.99 pomegranate-cranberry oatmeal, and while you're eating, you glance at your newly painted toes, and then see THIS not four inches away from your foot. I did not eat all day after that morning and wore my work shoes (heavy duty steel-toe shoes) around the house the rest of the day, which actually was almost a workout, I think I might be unto something.But back to the spider. She had all her nasty little kids on her back so I automatically got my tennis shoes and crushed her. And then again. and AGAIN. She finally stopped twitching and I felt a grim satisfaction. Until, I realised, some babies had survived. they began to scuttle across my linoleum really fast in all directions. I then started to jump around and squish them one by one, because I knew that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and it was only a matter of time before these tiny beasts would drop THIER load of children on me next. After I was done killing, I stood up, panting, and looked at the floor. It was the most grotesque-looking confetti I had ever seen, little spots of spider parts all over the place. I quietly sweeped them up and chunked them into the garbage half a block away. Problem solved.
The Brown Recluse
When I was first moving in, you know, knocking around cabinets and moving my dishes around, I came face to face with my first brown recluse. They might not seem scary because of thier size, but believe me, they are. They also run pretty fast, they won't chase you or anything, but they really hate people and light so they haul ass to the nearest closet (much like our LARP-ing bretheren).The only reason I don't hate these more is that they won't bite unless you really piss them off or they think you might accidently squish them. But if they do..... you're screwed. Just kidding. sort of. If you don't get medical attention within 48 hours, then yes, you are screwed. After hours of research, I then created a ritual where I would shake all of my fabrics and shoes before putting them against my body. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't have a lot of house guests, because a lot of people aren't experts on brown-recluse-attack-prevention like I am and would've thought I was a freak for beating my couch pillows and shaking out my bedsheets all the time.
The Gejigeji
Just look at that abomination for a second. Sure, they're not intristicaly poisonous, but they're still as scary as hell. These are native to Japan and can get pretty big. The one I 'found' was about 4 and half inches long. They're not poisonous to humans and not really aggressive, but the one I met was definitely was a jerk. I was watching that movie Dear John at my apartment (as it turns out, the Redbox at our one Walgreens didn't have a great selection) and at one point I had to go to the bathroom. So I walked to the little 1/2 bathroom in my living room, and for whatever reason, I got the urge to look to my right, directly at the wall. And there it was, moving every one of his legs seperately at almost eye level to me. You have no idea how scared I was, because this thing actually looks WORSE in the faint blue light of a bad movie. I hit myself so hard in the elbow against the opposite wall that I was stunned for a second, and this is when I learned that these bugs jump. Yes, jump. He jumped unto the carpet and I did a weird leaping-crawling thing to get away. I ran upstairs and got my steel toe boots (not- messing-around-boots) I creeped my way down the stairs, careful to not make noise, because I knew it was there. Waiting. It took several times, but I finally crushed him; he was so big I could hear the crunching as I killed it. So big, I felt like I was making an offering to a twisted Orkin-god or something. After that fiasco, Dear John didn't seem that bad at all.
The Hell-Cave Spiders
One time I went to the mall in Chattanooga and was talking to the cashier at Dillards(?) and ended up giving him my number because he said he could show me around the city. Other than the fact I cannot grasp the idea of 'picking up' (he later took me out to dinner), I gave it to him because I told him I wanted to do all the outdoorsy things you can do in backwoods Tennessee; He said he knew of a police chief that regularly went rockclimbing, caving and rafting.
So 'Chief ' eventually got into contact with me and he invited me to go caving with his son and his girlfriend, I said yes and before I knew it I was in a wetsuit and had safety straps going all over my body and an inescapable fear that this would be the last thing I ever wore. I was then lowered into this narrow, dark and slimy cave. I felt the ground and tugged on the rope to let them know I was down. I watched the rope get pulled back up to the surface and then decided to see exactly where I was. I adjusted my little flash-light hat and turned around.
The cave became a tunnel-esque hole a few feet in front of me, so I crouched down and my gaze froze when I saw dozens of these giant grasshopper-daddy-longlegs-bugs(the first picture) along the rock walls. The light agitated them and they started crawling around just as Chief straightened out next to me and says, "My wife really hates those cave-spiders". I just gaped at him and tried to think of an excuse to bail me out of this when he said, "These aren't that bad, wait until you see the whip spiders". People, this is a whip spider:
These bastards are also pretty big, almost the size of my hand (thier legs extended). I also do not know what those claws in front are for, and never ever want to know. I did not get that close to one (I wouldnt even know, it was so dark) but the entire time I kept my hands and close to my body as possible, as I already was hated in the bug world. I hate these the most because not only do they live in dark, cold places, they also love to hang around the ceiling.
Our adventure ended when we found a pool inside the cave, complete with a waterfall, and swam for a bit. Then we went back the same way. Back down the cave water streams, over crevices and through chest deep pools with 'surprise' holes in them. Caving is NOT easy at all and I instantly regretted not telling anyone where I was the moment I was roped in. What they don't tell you until the end is that getting back out is the worst part of the whole ordeal, you have to find footholds and then slide your harness up. Its much easier said than done, especially when you have short legs like I do. I kept slipping from my footholds and would swing violently in the dark empty air. Eventually I got out and drove straight home, and never again complained about boring weekends at my apartment.
