Hey. This is Ryan. Anyone who knows me well, knows I am not a fan of insects. I hate them. I don't touch them. They are gross.
And I'm from Arizona! The desert part of Arizona. That means I grew up with cockroaches, tarantulas, scorpions, vinegaroons, crickets and other creepy crawlies invading our home. But we did not have earwigs. I hate earwigs, did I mention that?
Our camping trip/Smith Family Reunion was great, except for the hundreds of uninvited guests that invaded our family's tent. Luckily, our tent was pretty bug-proof. But, they were everywhere. Worse was my poor inlaws. They had two tents and in the morning, were full of earwigs. It was gross. I've referenced "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" before, but this was like that. (I had/have nightmares because of that movie. I still love it, though.)
The camping trip was filled with lots of screaming. The little girls screamed a lot, but most of it was from me. The family thinks my phobia is hilarious, so they like to exacerbate the situation most times. I jumped several times because I had the heeby-jeebies, which led to fits of laughter from the on-lookers. We are still fishing dead earwigs out of the washer. Gross.
I have many bug stories, but here are three that come to mind. Judge my neurosis for yourself:
Story 1: This happened when we lived on Kansas Settlement Road in Willcox, Arizona. We were about 15 miles from town on the edge of a bird sanctuary/desert. We had lots of bugs. I was "tramping on the tramp" (that's what Luke calls it) for a bit and I put my watch in the planter on the porch to keep it safe. It was a fancy calculator watch and I wanted to take care of it. I also took off my glasses, which makes me about as useful as Velma Dinkley on Scooby Doo when she loses her glasses. When I decided to go back inside, I went to put on my watch and my glasses, in that order. I reached into the planter and pulled out what I thought was my watch. It was black and hard all right, but it moved in my hands. I screamed and threw a large vinegaroon to the ground. Nightmares, I tell ya! Nightmares.
Story 2: On my mission in Brazil, I met many tropical jungle bugs. The worst were the flying/hissing cockroaches. I hate cockroaches. I hate gigantic cockroaches worse. And the cockroaches in Brazil scream or hiss or something. Terrifying. I woke up twice staring a cockroach in the face while it was perched on my face. I have nightmares of cockroaches laying eggs in my ears. My companion thought my fear was funny, too, because he tossed one of the bugs at me one time. Not knowing it had wings, he threw it to watch me scream in horror only to watch it spread its wings and land on my mouth. I punched him in the face and went to bed.
Story 3: We went to Hawaii with Lisha's family. We were all in the living room in this beautiful beach house when a cockroach scampered by. I jumped up and backed against the wall as it came towards me. My brother-in-law caught it and cupped his hands around it. He made a move toward me and I bolted out the door onto the front lawn. They still laugh that they have never seen me move so fast.
Hey Lisha here to amend the story...he forgot to add that he SCREAMED like a girl as he was running fast out the door. I know because the "boys" all scream at him and laugh their heads off whenever they talk about it...trust me, it comes up a lot.
Yup. I hate bugs. We all have our phobias, so don't laugh at mine. I want to know: What is your relationship with insects? Do you have a bug story? Gross me out. I dare ya.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Insects Suck
Posted by Ryan Hansen at 3:29 PM
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7 comments:
MY favorite cockroach story is from when I went to school in Hawaii...I was visiting my guy friends at their house when we saw a giant cockroach climbing the wall across the room. One of the guys took off his flip flop and chucked across the room at the cockroach. It hit the bug, smashed it into the wall and left a nice streak of bug guts as it fell to the floor. I wnet back a few weeks later. Yup the streak was still there. I don't know what is more gross, the boys or the bugs.
In college I decided to buy a box of a dozen doughnuts. I was happily eating them all myself. I ate one or two more than I should have, and was starting to feel . . . not sick, but like I should stop. They tasted so good that I didn't stop, and halfway through the next one I happened to look down at it and discovered an ant perfectly preserved in the glaze. I gagged and gagged and gagged. Years later I still triggered my gag reflex whenever I thought of this incident.
I was laughing so hard when I read this. I was trying to stifle it, too, because I'm at work and didn't want anyone to know I was reading something non-work-related. So funny!
When my family lived in a crappy 1-bedroom apartment in Kennewick, WA, we had problems with ants. We tried everything, but they kept coming back. One morning, heading to the (very tiny) kitchen to grab some brekky, I nearly stepped on a gigantic mass of thousands upon thousands of teeming ants...devouring a 5 inch worm that had some how crawled into our house. My mom grabbed the vacuum and I will never forget the slurping sound as it sucked up the mass, worms, ants and all.
Oh, I love it! I grew up in AZ, too, and I know those nasty bugs (except vinagroons. That is one ugly sucker!). But I have stories from the mission. Costa Rica has GIANT ants, the size of a toe. For service once, we decided to clean the church "chapel". Especially the piano, because giant ants always crawled out onto my hands from between the keys every time I would play. We opened the top of the piano, sprayed some "Baygon" (I think that's how it's spelled), and hordes and HORDES of ants flooded out of that thing, onto the floor and out the door. We had to run outside and then spray all their gigantic bodies out with a hose. Kinda like those scarabs in the Mummy.
Can I keep going? I can stand most bugs, just not cockroaches. We lived in a nasty blue apartment with a tiny fridge that sat in the corner right under one of the venetian blind-type windows that we never needed to close. We always had cockroaches in the apartment, but we cleaned everywhere all the time - just not behind the fridge. One evening while on the phone with our DL, I watched a roach crawl out from under my bed, and head right for me. I casually grabbed the Baygon and sprayed him. He jumped up and flew right at me while I screamed into the phone, spraying the whole time. He finally dropped right before he got to me, crawled under my comp's bed and died. Then, after I transfered, my comp told me that they finally cleaned behind the fridge. I'll just say I'm glad I wasn't there... =)
Ahhh,vinegaroons, haven't thought about them in forever.
When I was in Brasil, a red ant bit me and actually made me bleed. I stuck him in with a bunch of small black ants (1/10th the size) and they had their way with him. I was amazed how they all gang tackled him at once.
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