I want to start by apologizing to my entire neighborhood for the blood curdling shriek in the middle of my off-key rendition of Devo’s “Whip It.” I would also like to thank anyone who stopped to applaud at the heebie-jeebie dance that disrupted the 80s style dancing I had been working into my yard work. There was a spider. A really big spider. A spider that was SO big, it grabbed my clippers right out of my hand and threw them back at me!
Ok, maybe it wasn’t quite that big… But for an instant, as I was yanking branches and leaves out and clipping them to reasonable length, I thought the bush was alive! I had been grabbing clumps of overgrown branches and cutting them with hand-held clippers. I was about halfway through the project when a fistful of branches and leaves twitched in my hand (and no, I wasn’t wearing gardening gloves). A million thoughts ran through my head at once, including the image of the apple trees from the Wizard of Oz … I let go as if I had been electrocuted and instantly saw legs! LONG legs with elbows and knee-caps! It was orange against the bright green leaves and pink flowers… And I screamed. I admit it. I did the heebie-jeebie dance like Michael Jackson in the video for ‘Beat It’—right in the middle of my driveway for all the neighbors to see.
Of course, once I composed myself, I took several pictures of the minivan-sized arachnid and posted it to my Facebook page. Someone pointed out that I seem to have a disproportionate number of run-ins with large insects and bugs. So I began to scan through my pictures…
Maybe it started when I was very young, which means I can either blame my mother or Walt Disney… Was it Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web? Maybe Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio or even the hookah-smoking caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland? My father really liked butterflies and we often had butterfly boxes in the house with local monarch caterpillars, too. Perhaps I should blame him? No matter, and I cannot say for sure, but I do seem to attract a lot of strange bugs.
Inside my house: What has elbows, knees and needs to shave? The spider that magically appeared above my bed just before I turned out the light… I went to get the vacuum and when I came back… It was GONE! I ripped all the pillows and covers off my bed… Shook curtains… Looked with a flashlight under the bed… POOF! I may have slept on the couch that night… and the next night…
In my car: I was driving with my window down when a bright green thing with wings and legs everywhere flew in and landed on the dashboard. He was worst carpool buddy EVER!! First of all, he didn’t ask if it was ok to bum a ride. Second, he didn’t bring me coffee. Third, he complained for the entire ride about my driving AND my music … AND FINALLY: he tried to kiss me in the parking lot when we go to work!
In the dark: Whatever it is appeared in my hallway one night after I brought the dogs inside. I have dark carpeting, so I thought it was a stick and PICKED IT UP! <
In the pool: I still don’t know what kind of beetle it was, but I swear it was the size of a pterodactyl… and NO, I didn’t go swimming that morning.
Of course, I am not limiting my escapades to creepy-crawly things that are big enough to chase off with a tennis racquet. The itty-bitty guys can be just as bad, if not worse, than the ones that could abduct a small child or a poodle.
Just this past week, I had a rare chance to slip out onto the river in Dennis. It was a beautiful evening, high tide, a very light breeze: perfect for kayaking. We drifted through the marsh and over to a small sand spit… I watched a heron fly by. There was an osprey watching over her nest…There was no boat traffic at all. Cape Cod at its best. Until… Without warning… A quiet afternoon of kayaking turning into a race for our lives!!! A race for our sanity!!! A race against: NO-SEE-UMS!!! They were everywhere! In my nose, my hair, on my arms and feet! There was nothing calm or quiet about the crazy paddling across the water and the scramble to yank the kayaks out of the water and back into the truck. Then, as if it was all a calculated maneuver by the bugs, once I slammed the car door shut to keep the little torturous gnats out, I heard the buzz of a large angry greenhead bouncing around the inside of the windshield –trapped inside with me! In my utter state of hysteria, I tried to shoo it out the window. This didn’t end well for any of the parties involved.
Wow – that’s enough about bugs. I was going to go outside with the dogs, but I think we might just play ball in the house instead.
About Cat Wilson
