Bugging me
Megan's scorpion, heroically nabbed by Preston.My parents transplanted our family of nine from Minnesota to Colorado nearly 40 years ago. Three talking points I recall of their spiel trying to sell my siblings and me on the move were 1) "The people are so nice, even strangers on the street say 'hello';" 2) "Out west, everyone wears blue jeans;" and 3) "There are no bugs."
Nos. 1 and 2 registered slightly above a "meh" with me. No. 3 had my attention. As a child who was traumatized by had memorable run-ins with leeches, walking sticks, and woodticks that turned white and grew to the size of marbles when not removed from dogs or the hairline of a little girl who thought she might be feeling a tumor growing on the back of her scalp and was too scared to seal her fate by telling Mom about it, the idea of no bugs sounded pretty darn good. More than just good, in fact, it sounded worth the move. I was sold.
I've lived in Colorado the biggest chunk of my life now and I'm still sold. I'm sold on Colorado for myriad reasons, but after Megan's revelations the past week about the critters in her part of the world, I admit minimal bugs are still one of the greatest appeals. I've actually said such a thing to Jim in the past week, and he agreed. Yes, we'll stay put in Colorado. Likely 'til Kingdom comes.
The revelations from Megan that heebie-jeebied me so involved scorpions. Just days after their visit to fairly bug-free Colorado was over and she headed back with Bubby to their desert home, Megan spotted a scorpion in the corner of her living room ceiling. A vaulted living room ceiling that she couldn't reach on her own, not even with the tube of the vacuum cleaner stretched to the max to suck up the critter. In her third trimester of pregnancy, climbing a ladder to reach the scorpion wasn't an option. Especially because it might skitter away causing Megan to fall from the ladder in fright, threatening the well-being of not only herself, but her unborn Birdy and the surely freaked-out Bubby below. So she and Bubby kept tabs on its location until Preston could leave work early to get home and save his loved ones from the ceiling-bound scorpion.
Disaster averted, thanks to Preston, a vacuum tube, and duct tape. Except that they spotted another scorpion in the same room upon their return from a weekend trip to Sea World. The scorpion professionals were to be scheduled to rid their home of the critters. For this month, anyway. Apparently such pest control is ongoing, a monthly service required of residents of the desert. At least those who don't want their babies stung by the little cussers.
When I shared Megan's scorpion story with one of the tutors I oversee for the literacy center, a woman who has lived in various spots around the country in the past 50 years or so, she shrugged off the tale. She'd gotten used to such things while living in desert climes, she said. You shake out your shoes before putting them on, you shake out your clothes before dressing, you shake out your bed covers before jumping under them. She'd lived with worse, she said, including rattlesnakes coiled up in bushes she'd started to trim ... then slowly had to back away from to keep from being bit. Now that was scary, she said. But the fear of the rattlesnakes was balanced out by the harmless geckos that climbed the walls, she added. The little critters that were oh-so cute ... except when you forgot to shake out the toaster before pushing down the handle on your breakfast bread. Toasting up a crumb-savoring gecko is not a good way to start your day, she stressed.
Shaking toasters, shoes, and bushes or sucking up scorpions with the vacuum don't sound like good ways to spend any portion of a day, if you ask me. I honestly don't understand how folks live in such places.
I especially don't understand why Megan hires scorpion zappers to make floors and cribs and ceilings safe for my grandbabies instead of packing up the brood and heading to the hills. Specifically, heading to the hills of Colorado ... where she was raised ... and where she knows there are no bugs to threaten the lives of her — and my — loved ones.
Disclaimer: Yes, I know there are brown recluse spiders and spotted ticks and rattlesnakes and more in Colorado. But they're up in the high country for the most part, not in residential areas where we have to fear for our lives and the lives of our babies on a daily basis.
Today's question:
What memorable run-ins have you had with creepy-crawlies of any sort?
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Reader Comments (20)
After wedding week last week, I started thinking that maybe we should move back to Oklahoma. Our nieces are there and our parents are getting older. It would make sense. Then I started thinking about the heat. And the humidity. And most of all, the BUGS. We are so spoiled here. No mosquitoes. No ticks. No cockroaches. No silverfish. (Or at least very few.) And that put the brakes on THAT.
As a kid, I had a tick encounter much like yours. Only that sucker (literally) was in my ear. (Shiver!)
I lived in Hawaii for 4 years where I ran into every creepy crawly you could imagine. Only there they are about 10 times the normal size... 4 inch diameter spiders that jump, centipedes that are 6 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. *shivers* Those are among the most memorable we found in our house. *shivers* I didn't like living in Hawaii for that reason. *shivers*
Oh man! Before my husband and I moved to Orlando, we lived in Las Vegas ... up on Mount Charleston where I was bedeviled by sun spiders/wind scorpions -- huge things, big as my fist. I had several run ins with these creatures that scared the crap outta me. I included one such tale in a recent blog post if you'd like to check it out: http://www.norinedworkin.com/blog/2010/10/being-nice-to-fire-ants-really/
Meanwhile, I love your blog! Looking forward to more!
Norine
I do have to complain about the Miller moths here in Colorado. But I LOVE -- love love love -- the fact that we don't have to deal with fleas.
When I was a kid in Illinois we had a silverfish infestation. They only seemed to get into my bedroom though, so Dad thought I was full of it. Silverfish aren't dangerous but they sure are icky.
At 10 we moved to an abandoned farmhouse that was infested with flies, rings of them around the food, layered on the windows and ceilings, constantly in our world, even when we 'cleaned up'. I still can't stand them.
When my sister-in-law accompanied us to Trinidad's Rain Forest, she screamed and jumped out of the shower saying a spider was in it. "Kill it" said I. Her "It's too big" response brought us to inspect only to find a tarantula the size of a man's fist in the shower!
1. too awesomely said for words: woodticks that turned white and grew to the size of marbles when not removed from dogs or the hairline of a little girl who thought she might be feeling a tumor growing on the back of her scalp and was too scared to seal her fate by telling Mom about it
2. My ex fell on our son Clark when he was 18 mo from atop a ladder, in boots -- you just brought back a scary memory
3. scorpions are hideous!
4. we had ginormous centipedes in St. Croix. that's one thing I'm glad to be rid of.
Loved the post.
p
I had to kill a spider about the size of a small fly the other day and have been shaking ever since; now, after reading all these comments, I'll be having nightmares for a week.
Wow I would have a cow if I saw a scorpion like that. I've lived in the desert for 5.5 years, and no scorpions in my apartment so far.....or at least any that I know of. I'm in no hurry to find any, either. We don't get many bugs at all in our place, maybe because we live in an upstairs apartment. I know there are scorpions and tarnatulas and snakes here, but I like to think they're all south or north of the famous Las Vegas sign. Oh Wait! I live south of that sign. Never mind.
I don't like critters.
I've had run ins with all of the above and mice too. They seem to find me no matter where I am. Hubby has even come home from work to rescue me from them. I didn't like living in Hawaii because of the critters!
An encounter with any kind of spider is memorable for me....I hate spiders. I am from Hawaii and I only remember encounters with large, flying cockroaches! I do remember centipedes but didn't see too many spiders where we lived, probably because the geckos ate them!
Lisa: thanks for giving me the "shivers" today - LOL.
Eeeeeeeek! I just decided I'm staying put in Illinois despite my hatred of snow. Yes, we have occasional ticks, fleas, spiders, centipedes, and ants, but no way I ever want to deal with a scorpion. Glad that your daughter and Bubby are safe and sound!
I'm Illinois born and bred, so I should have known to look before sitting down outside...on a red ant hill...ouch! ouch! ouch!
Minnesota mosquitoes carried off my cat. Okay, not true. They are pesky but not scary like snakes and scorpions. My scary moment was having a large bear wander into the blueberry patch where I was picking, alone. But my mom had coached us for years: leave your berries and slowly back away. The bear moved on and eventually I got my bucket of berries back. Whew.
I grew up in Colorado, too, and have a terrible fear of earwigs after repeatedly finding them crawling on my face while camping in the backyard. However, I'll take an earwig over a scorpion any day. Whenever I visit family in Texas, all the big, gross, crunchy Texas bugs freak me the cuss out.
Lisa, grandson # 2 was born today! We are so thrilled! :)
My son found a black widow spider in his garage in Colorado --that was unnerving as they are poisonous to young children. He had an exterminator come out to make sure they were all gone.
The worse bugs that inhabit NYC are cockroaches...disgusting and dirty! Thankfully, I've never had them in my home. The other things we fear here are ticks that carry Lyme disease, and mosquitoes in summer that carry West Nile Fever. Lately many areas in NYC have had bedbug problems ...again something I've never had to deal with. i do admit that I'll check any hotel I stay in from now on for bed bugs as the problem seems to be getting larger everywhere.
I hate bugs period. Had a snake run across my foot once while I was wrapping the vaccum cord around the tank, after cleaning my car. It was I all I could do to stand there til it crawled off and it only took me one jump up the steps of the porch into the house. It was a small cooperhead which I found out later is more poisonous than the big ones. ooooooooh
Well, a few years ago I lived in an apartment in Upstate SC. It was a large, nice basement apartment. It was very open and well lit with high ceilings, didn't feel like a basement at all. I was out in the country too. :) One day I decided to take my bath in the early afternoon. I had been outside working in my yard and needed to bathe. I am near sighted as well, but of course don't wear my glasses while in the tub. I started my water, stripped off my dirty clothes and laid my glasses on the counter to climb in my tub. Only I forgot I had the tea kettle on, and when it started whistling at me, I jumped out to turn it off. Walking back to the bathroom, I thought I caught a glimpse of something moving at the edge of the bathroom door. I started to step in the room, but stopped suddenly. Why? Because the pencil I thought I saw in the floor started moving away from me quickly! I jumped back as well, not sure what in the world I was going to do naked and half blind! I pinned the little critter to the wall as best I could with the toilet brush, and grabbed the trash can and managed to scoop the offender inside and ran out my front door with can in hand. I ran all the way across the yard and threw the can and snake in my woods. :) Then I remembered . . . I was naked! OOOPPPS! As I said earlier, I lived in the country. As far as I know no one but Mother Nature saw me in my Birthday Suit. Unfortunately, it wasn't the end of my adventure. Over the next 6 days I had 7, count 'em, 7 baby king snakes slithering around with me. Le sigh. Glad I don't live in that apartment anymore. I like my new house just fine. Glad Megan and family are doing ok....so am I. :) Angela
bugs, snakes, heat and humidity are on my list of ''NO'S'' in life......Move to Maine the way
life should be!!!! I lived in Arkansas for nine years, snakes, spiders, critters of every sort
crawling here, there and everywhere!!!! Back to Maine we landed....NO REGRETS! I
would take blizzards, ice, freaking cold weather anyday over bugs.....
We have to contend with those giant flying cockroaches down here on the coast. Yuck! I keep small bowls of lavender in my linen closet to keep the silverfish out. And we have big problems with fire ants that are very difficult to get rid of.
This is why I'm a city girl ... those who live in the country around here have to deal with rattlesnakes, wild pigs, coyotes. I don't like creepy crawly things.
About a year ago, I got up during the night to go to the bathroom. When I came back to the bed, something told me to turn on the lamp. There, on my pillow, was the biggest spider I had ever seen. I grabbed the pillow, planning to dump the spider on the floor so I could stomp it and it scurried inside the pillow case. My husband, who was snoring soundly, awoke to my hysteria and killed the spider. I didn't sleep the remainder of the night. I still inspect the bed and my pillow every night. Night before last he told me about another spider that he had killed on the bed that day. He said he had walked through the bedroom, saw the spider and it stopped mid-step, knowing it had been caught. He had to chase it down to kill it. You think I slept any??? NOT. I'm wondering if the bed rails are infested with spiders. Mama used to tell me that she and her older brother would get up during the night and play with the bedbugs that were crawling on the floor. Papa ran a small General Store in one room of the house and they would get bottle caps from the store and use them to trap the bedbugs. The one who caught the most won the game. Yuck!!