As my day drew to a close last night, I decided on one last cigarette on the side porch. Grabbing my copy of Michael Ford's The Ten Thousand, I turned on the yellow-tinted "guaranteed not to attract bugs" porch light, and stepped outside.
Normally in summer, I don't make much use of the landing at the top of the stairs. Summers are fairly buggy here on the lake, and this one had been buggier than usual. More bugs means more spiders. I'm not fond of spiders at all, but I reach a sort of modus vivendi with them in the summer months: as long as they eat bugs and don't build webs where I run into them, I let them live. (Also, they should attempt to not be gross looking and should always avoid my observation, but I try to be tolerant.) This means that by mid-July, the landing at the top of the stairs is pretty well swathed in spiderwebs, so I stand rather still while reading to avoid being forced into a spider-killing frenzy by touching a web.
Anyway, I'm standing there reading, when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up in time to realize that I was about to be divebombed by the holy crap, no-kidding, biggest damn bug I have ever seen outside of a museum. I'd like to take this moment to apologize to my neighbors, as well as probably folks as far away as Sevierville, for the big girly shriek, followed immediately by the loudly slamming door, as I dove for cover. When it hit the door behind me (and it did; it was coming right for me,) it rattled the glass in the pane. This thing was huge. Gynormous. Whamdigeous. It had to be seven inches across the wings, and its body was as big as my thumb. It could have carried a regular moth under each wing, and a good-sized Luna on a centerline pylon.
I never saw it fly off.
It might still be waiting for me out there.
Jeez, I hate big bugs.
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24 comments:
Maybe a small bat?
No, I got a good look at it through the window afterwards. For quite some time. Until it dropped below my sight line and rustled against the door for a bit. For all I know, there it waits, just itching to go "BOO!" when I open the door...
Whamdigeous.
That's a good one.
I'll have to let a friend know that one of her test subjects is on the loose...
Rat shot...
Hmm.....
Any unexplained streaks of light in the night sky recently?
Maybe it's a 'visitor'. (g)
Sounds to me like you need a good .22 revolver loaded with micro shot loads.
Moth skeet..........
"...it was coming right for me..."
Per the South Park ROE, you were cleared to open fire at that time.
You still are, as a matter of fact.
Or, maybe it was just trying to satisfy it's nicotine jones.
(Just a little something to think about the next time you head out there for a late-night smokerette.)
12 guage loaded with fine dirt. There was an english gent who shot bugs in the offseason. Im told he was quite sane really so have fun LOL.
The Polyphemus moth? We used to have those things all over when I was a kid. I swear, sometimes they traveled in flocks.
You can RAISE them!
Sheesh. Whatever it was get over it. A big girl gunslinger like you being a scaredycat over some bug, no matter the size. My, my.
Tam, I know you carry. Next time shoot the damn bug.
But it would look splendid splayed on your personal bug-zapper. Maybe it would even spark up a bit.
"...88,000 times its own weight..."
So it COULD eat you. Over a few months. (EWW!) I'd say that was a weapons-free moment if there ever was one.
M
"Jeez, I hate big bugs."
I LIKE big bugs and I cannot lie...
Oh wait, wrong song.
Never mind.
We had giant flying critters like that overseas, stuff that ate other flying critters. Mantids and some kind of beetle - apparently they get big enough that the Government of India attributed an alleged UFO sighting to "giant flying insects." As big as birds, they would hit the window-screens hard enough to rattle them. You should have seen the water-bugs - they would eat frogs. I hate bugs.
Uh.....screens, maybe?
Wow you really could use one of these-
http://xavierthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/07/now-thats-shotgun.html
Mike
Mark,
My entomology-inclined lady-friend tells me that the adult moths have no mouths (Harlan Ellison reference goes here), and exist only to mate. Perhaps that's what triggered it's Stuka run at Tam.
Hey Tam, thanks for plugging my book. Sorry you had to read it under those circumstances, though. FWIW, I hate those big mothy things too...
See, this is what happens when all those bookworms finally hatch and drink the radioactive waste water that flows down into the lake from atomic city.
So nu? You weren't armed?
Just take the Model 11 with you when you open the door and shoot the damn thing. Or spray Gunscrubber all over it.
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