Bugs 101

1. Wake up at 4:00 a.m.
2. There is something crawling on my arm
3. Relieved it's not a spider, I pick off the woodtick
4. Dump it in the toilet and get on with my morning

Woodticks are a testament that people can get used to almost anything.
I remember people telling me about Woodticks when I first moved here. Fortunately I didn't see one that first summer. The stories of people having to check their bodies every night before bed to ensure the little bloodsuckers didn't lodge their heads under your skin while you were sleeping, quite frankly, freaked me out. At first, I'd flap my arms like an idiot and call Mark whenever I felt one of the little, unmistakable bumps wedged up tight against my skin. Twenty-six years later, I can pick off a woodtick without thinking about it. I can even pick them off other people and the dogs.

I guess you could say, learning to live with the little brownish/red parasite was a maturing experience. Bugs don't bother me nearly as much as they used to. Getting used to the worst bug of all, makes all other critters seem pretty tame. I can step on a cockroach in Mexico without even blinking.

Unfortunately, learning to live with woodticks didn't help much with my spider phobia, but I'm better than I used to be. I now know how to drown a spider if it's in the bathtub. I can step on them or brush them off my body as long as they are small. If they are dead, I can pick them up with a paper towel as long as I don't have to squeeze too hard.

I can deal with a spider as long as:
1) It isn't too big
2) It isn't in my hair
3) It's not dangling in the car while I'm in it.

Scenario: You and I are together. I'm chatting in a most animated way, telling you a story that seems a little too long and somewhat pointless (there is an end, I'll get to it, just be patient) and suddenly you see a big spider dangling near my head or crawling up my back onto my shoulder. What should you do?

1) Tell me
2) Run away
3) Kill it fast before I notice

If you picked 3, then you are correct.
If you pick number 1, then you are going to see a whole lot of arm flapping, screaming and foot stomping. You could get hurt. If we're in the car together and I'm the one who is driving, we're going to go off the road. It will take me an hour to recover and then I'll forget where I was in my story and start over from the beginning.
If you pick number 2, I'll call you a coward and never speak to you again. Afterall, I'm the one with the spider phobia, not you, so what's your frickin' problem? Just kill the bastard and get it over with. I don't even care if you have to hit me with a hard object to do it.

And one word of caution: Don't ever think it would be funny to chase me with a big spider in a jar. Someone did that to me once but I can't remember his name because I never spoke to him again. I'm not kidding. I think he was my mother's second born . . .