Saturday, September 15, 2007

The Horror

Seven days later and I'm finally feeling like I'm on the mend. Yesterday I took Clarence to get his stitches out, YAY no more Mr. Conehead, but that simple trip wiped me out. Even interacting with my computer has been almost too much. But now, NOW you're in for it. Vacation photo time!!!!

Okay, so while it was The Best Trip Ever, it always helps to have some dark evil contrast to really highlight good stuff. The only thing more terrifying than zombies is... THIS. Caterpillars. They were everywhere. And they were huge. Are you cringing yet?

Okay, I know, this next picture illustrates a more common fear:

the loss of limbs. But if I were to lose two limbs, I would be at 50%, whereas this spider has 6 legs left, and still seems perfectly capable of building her home. Logically speaking, the fear of caterpillars is senseless compared to fear of bodily harm. But guess what?? There is a NAME for this fear. Scoleciphobia. How validated am I now? HAHA! Okay, well technically, it's the fear of WORMS, which also terrify me, but a furless caterpillar is equally gross and freaky. Dang, except when they are also strangely, almost... pretty.


This was a lavender inchworm, and while putting me on high alert, I still had to get it's picture. If it had jumped at me, (yes, caterpillars jump at you, the better to latch on to your face and bore into your skull and eat your brains) I would have screamed bloody murder. It didn't, though, and after I put some space between me and it I felt much better. And on the whole, I dealt with the whole caterpillars everywhere thing pretty darn well. Except for this one. This one elicited yelps and shivers. Oh gad, I can't even look at this for more than a second.


This one moved FAST, fueling my belief in their ninja capabilities. And it was easily FOUR INCHES LONG. O...M...G... feeling faint just remembering how close I got. If I haven't mentioned this before, my camera will be the death of me. Caterpillars= hazardous to my health. I need some coffee now, to reward myself just for looking at that thing again. Coffee's good for a flu/ cold, right? Yeah, about as much as the above critters are bad for me.

P.S. I am so bad. I dropped a coffee bean (that's bad but not what I meant) and immediatly kicked it under the counter. Umm, instead of, you know, picking it up. It was a totally automatic response. I am the best housekeeper ever! Well, at least now it won't get stepped on and ground up into the floor.... Have I mentioned that I rule?

3 comments:

Maewen Archer said...

I have a similar fear of butterflies. When I was little, and I learned that monarch butterflies are poisonous if you eat them, I assumed that they were out to get me and would fly into my mouth and attempt to poison me. Vicious beasts. I never got over it.

Her Grace said...

On a recent hike with my girls, I spotted what looked like a rolled up green leaf on the ground. I nearly stepped on it. When my older daughter bent down to look at it, it began MOVING. It was a caterpillar, easily 5 inches long and as thick around as a hot dog. Pure bright green. It was all I could do not to run screaming from the forest right then!

That lavender one is kind of pretty.

Anonymous said...

Remember the little oak tree caterpillars we had in Ben Lomond growing up? The ones that would come down our of the tree and git stuck in your hair. Okay now that I have made you even more edgy about caterpillars here's a comic that I think you might enjoy reading while you're feeling poorly. http://devilspanties.keenspot.com/