Really Bugs.

I don't know what's happening, but as of late, the insects of the world have combined their forces in attacking me.

Twice now, I've gone to get into my car and drive away late at night only to find that a kamikaze moth has infiltrated the safety of my vehicle.  Moths are evil. I know this because they wait to make their appearance until I am already in motion, forcing me to swerve, slam on my brakes and shriek while I try to simultaneously roll down the window and direct it (via frantic hand motions) OUT.

Moths have scarred me for life.
One year at girls camp, there was a veritable infestation at Camp Koholowo. We'd find them in our bags, on our pillows and lying dead in piles around the cabin floor. Up until that point, I'd viewed moths as a less beautiful version of butterflies. Feeling very much like a moth myself in a world full of butterflies, I was determined to still love them despite their supposed unattractiveness.

That is until that first night when one of them kept flying into the light, causing a continual *plink*.. *plink*... *plink* and keeping my already frenzied mind from sleeping. That was when they morphed from something unappreciated to something inherently evil. It must have been bothering 'da twinneh' too, because she asked/pled with me to get up and kill the thing.

Being somewhat of the protector at the time (that or a glutton for punishment), I ventured out to do her bidding. Grabbing some spare toilet paper, I waited for the perfect instant to grab it and squish it between the folds.

What I did not realize regarding moths up to this point, was that they CRUNCH.

Feeling something 'crunch' between your fingers may very well be the worst feeling in the world. Beetles and moths are probably the worst offenders. I know because, as much as I tried to never again experience it, I crunched one recently by accident that had been attracted to the glow of my laptop during the night as I pulled it from my backpack. Thus, repressed childhood memories.

And apparently the ghosts of murdered moths past are coming back to haunt me. Along with their spider brethren.

I discovered one while opening my gifts at a bridal shower last weekend. I pulled out a salad bowl and some summer plates and found him waiting at the bottom of the sack. All I can figure is that he was either trying to kill me or steal my gifts, I can't be sure.

Either way, he waved his little pincher feet at me menacingly.

And then, yesterday when I came home to my apartment with arms full of groceries, a mini tarantula dropped out of no where and landed right on my hand.

It took all of the energy I possessed not to drop the load and jump backwards, which would have resulted in my death considering there was a railing and a three-story drop if I had done so. The best I could do was hold my breath and try to squish him with the only limb available, which happened to be a foot.

Which is rather hard to do when the spider in mention is a trick spider and can not only scurry up the door frame but jump fastastically.

I'm sorry to report that I didn't get him.
He escaped into his little hole to re-plot my doom.

And so I live in constant fear.
This is evidenced by the fact that the fiance's shirt lightly brushed my leg last night while watching TV and I jumped a mile, swatting whatever creepy-crawly I was convinced was there.

This is not good people. Not good.

Sleep on It

The other day, I was watching some mindless ABC television program documenting the lives of 'Sleep Eaters'. This parasomnia, or abnormal behavior, during sleep is a common occurrence among nearly a million Americans.

"We've had patients consume cat food sandwiches." an article relates, "They've put coffee grounds, Coca-Cola, and eggshells in a blender and consume it. They eat Elmer's Glue. They chew on chunks of frozen pizza and then try to swallow it. They're like sleeping zombies, just walking around headless. Except that they have a mouth to feed."

This is just awesome.

So here's my question:
Why in the mother of all sin can't I suffer from a parasomnia?

I will happily take any of the following:
1) Sleep exerciser
2) Sleep job searcher
3) Sleep chicken dancer

Let's face it.
That last one would be freakin' hilarious.

I can just see it now.

Actually, the parasomnia I'm really good at is turning off my alarm in my sleep.

Which is an increasingly alarming (excuse my pun) habit.

I'll awaken suddenly to Gem getting in the shower which, of course, means 'you have approximately 10 minutes before you should be ready and out the door'.

Commence cursing, sprinting, banging into walls, etc.

"How in the monkey did my alarm not go off AGAIN?!!", I'll wonder frantically.

Then I look down and see that I'm holding my phone.
Which means it did go off. And that I disabled the most annoying 'rooster crowing' alarm ever to have been invented by man at its highest volume...

in. my. sleep.

I should really get more than five hours of sleep per night...

That way, I'd be coherent enough to respond to my alarm and avoid intentionally vague emails from my ever-concerned mother warning against the 'evils of sin'. In this instance, sin equaling staying up late.

Well if the horns fit!

In other news, during my research on 'sleep eaters', I came across some very useful knowledge.

Apparently, though I may turn off alarms, I don't swallow spiders in my sleep.

"In order to swallow a spider in your sleep, a number of unlikely coincidences would all have to occur in sequence. You'd have to be sleeping with your mouth pretty wide open. If a spider crawled on your face and over your lips, you'd likely feel it, so a spider would have to approach you by descending from the ceiling above you on a silk thread. The spider would have to hit the target – your mouth - dead center to avoid tickling your lips. And if it landed on your tongue, a highly-sensitive surface, you would feel it for sure. So the spider would have to land at the back of your throat without touching anything on the way in. And then you'd have to swallow."

Now don't you feel better?

Death by Cricket.

One day I'll die.
It's a certifiable fact. There's no way out of it. You're going to die.
I'm going to die.

It's going to happen.

But the point is, today I figured out how it's going to go down.
There are three options:

A) I will be nonchalantly strolling on BYU campus when a killer grasshopper will unsuspectingly shoot out of the bushes and land on my pantleg. I will then die of fright and possibly crush the culprit in a dramatic death faint.

B) I will swallow a cricket in my sleep and choke to death.

C) I will be violently attacked by an orchestra of Mormon crickets while vacationing upon which time they will carry me into the forest. I'll never be heard from again.

*Sidenote* When I say an 'orchestra' of crickets, I do not mean a large group of musical insects who play instruments in a soothing and synchronized manner. That's really what a group of crickets is called. Don't believe me? Look it up.

To be safe, there is also option D, which involves being attacked by a horde of crickets/grasshoppers while sleepwalking on BYU campus at which point I will die of fright while simultaneously choking on one of the little beasts as they drag me into the bushes.

But those chances aren't as likely.

All I know is, that when I hear a rustle in the bushes or see any type of hopping bug in my path, time stops and my vision instantly magnifies by 200% until I see this staring at me...

Cue HORROR.

Sure, there are always exceptions.
For example, Jiminy Cricket sings about wishing on stars.
How menacing can that be?

And Crickee, on Mulan, is one lucky bug.

What you mean, a loser? How 'bout if I pop one of your antennas off and throw it across the yard? Then who's the loser, me or you?

On the other hand, further solidifying my argument, there is Hopper from A Bug's Life. That guy is truly evil incarnate.

I mean, look at his face!
ANGRY EYES with teeth all clenched and terrifying. (Do grasshoppers have teeth?... Great. Yet another thing to worry about.)

I attribute this acute aversion of all hopping pests to a certain childhood memory. Let me recite:

One day, Corinner-Elly was eating her lunch all happy and carefree-like. This was because she was eating a drumstick from one of her most favoritest places ever: KFC. She smiled and chewed and hummed and decided that the world was a good place and love was indeed fried. All too soon, she came to the end of her meal. Full to the brim and pleasantly satisfied, she leaned back to swallow the last few gulps of milk in her cup when, there, at the bottom of her glass, suddenly...

she saw IT.

Later, upon revival and subsequent hospitalization, she came to learn that a cricket infestation had taken place in the dishwasher earlier that month and she had become the unfortunate recipient of one of its casualties.

Or at least part of a casualty.

And that, dear children, is why Corinner-Elly was never able to eat KFC again. Or at least never accompanied by a glass of milk.

The End.