STICK BUG NIGHTMARES.

Ladies, this post might be a little much for you if you’re squeamish. You’ve been warned.

So last month we were down at my parent’s house in San Antonio, and the first thing we noticed when we rolled out of the car at 11pm was all the damn cicadas. The next thing I noticed was a gigantic beetle on the driveway. The next morning when we got up and went out back to have coffee on the back porch we saw all the cicadas and walking stick bugs stuck to the back wall.

‘We haven’t had the pest people out this Summer yet’ my dad said.

You don’t say.

I am generally not a really squeamish person. In general, bugs don’t really scare me. Well, unless we’re talking about cockroaches or tarantulas or black widow spiders or something. HARMLESS bugs don’t scare me. As long as I find them, and they don’t find me {read: as long as they’re not a surprise}. So the Mouse and I walked up and down the back porch counting cicadas and measuring stick bugs.

Have you ever seen a stick bug? They come in all different shapes and sizes … and honestly, I hadn’t ever seen one in person. They were SO BIG … and I was completely fascinated. There was one that hung on to the ceiling of the porch for over a day. He was gigantic, and I was kinda sad when he wasn’t there to watch anymore. Here’s a good example of what a stick bug looks like:

I know. He looks scary. But he doesn’t move fast … he just kind of sits there.

So a few weeks later we were back in San Antonio for a second visit. While we were there, my mom was needing to take her two foster kitties back to the shelter … so me and the boys tagged along to see all the animals and where Grandma volunteers. On the way home, we decided a pit stop at Sonic was needed.

I’m driving, and I pull into a spot across from where the main building is, so we were parked facing away from it. When I pulled into the spot, I pulled up too far, so in order to push the button to place my order, I had to open the door and lean out. I’m in the middle of placing my order, when my mom taps me on the shoulder and points to something directly in front of me.

Somehow, I have no idea how, but somehow, a walking stick bug had found its way onto my car, and more specifically onto the top of my car door, right in the crease. He was literally less than a foot from my face. Staring at me.

I started screaming. No really, SCREAMING. And may I remind you, I’m the middle of ordering drinks, so the intercom is on. I screamed so loud and so much that the Froggy started crying, and the Mouse started screaming too. My mother however? She was DYING laughing.

My second reaction {after screaming bloody murder} was to slam my door, but I caught myself, because if I had slammed my door, the damn thing would have been squished and I would have had huge stick bug guts all over my car and my face. Gross.

I finally got a hold of myself and stopped screaming, got the kids to stop screaming, and knocked him off my door with something {I honestly don’t remember what}. All I know, is that the dude fell to the ground, and lay there without moving. Maybe my screaming made his head implode, who knows.

I leaned back out of the car door, and pushed the button again … because there was no way I was still on the intercom. As I did, I looked behind me at the Sonic building and saw probably every employee working that day all lined up at the window and staring at our car. One was even outside. The first thing someone said when they answered the intercom was, ‘um, are you okay?’

‘NO I’M NOT OKAY! A GIANT BUG JUST ATTACKED ME!’

Okay, no it didn’t, but it was still scary as hell. And to be fair, when the waitress came out with our drinks, she saw it on the ground and concurred that it was a damn big bug.

I’m pretty sure that 3 weeks later, my mother is still laughing about the whole thing. She swears up and down she had no idea I would react like that, since she knows that I’m ‘not scared of bugs’. I informed her that she has altered my opinion of said creepy crawlies. I hope she’s happy with herself.