Reminds me of the time when I was a kid and raising praying mantises. I had an egg case in my room, which hatched overnight. The entire house was filled with a gazillion tiny praying mantises, looking for breakfast. All I remember is my mom vacuuming the drapes and warning me to NEVER AGAIN raise bugs in the house. I don’t think she ever told my father; he would’ve killed me.
@panache, your Mother must have been a saint.
I hate praying mantises, not as much as spiders, but still…a gazillion. Oh my freakin’ god!!
I don’t do bugs. It’s in my contract. I am supposed to run to another room, screaming my head off. That’s Mr VOW’s cue to kill the bug and rescue me.
When I was a kid, I was spending my usual Saturday sloth in my jammies, reading a book, and ignoring the world. I always become fully engrossed in a book, and the house could burn down around me.
I happened to look away from the book, and a huge praying mantis was sauntering up my leg.
I screamed, leaped up, and threw the book into orbit. My mother came running over to see what the commotion was. I was incoherent, pointing at the mantis which had climbed up the back of the chair, in a “king of the world” pose.
I think we tried to get the cat interested in the “biiiiig bug” but he had other catly things to do.
I don’t remember the fate of the mantis. I doubt it was killed, we all knew it was one of the good guys.
But coming practically eye-to-eye with a 3-inch long bug is…unsettling.
~VOW
