Bug stories
 

I don't like spiders. At all. Once, I killed a tarantula in my bathtub. With a 8 lb. dumbell.

What? I wasn't going to leave the thing in my house! It was it or me!

I also don't like scorpions, and here's why: When I was a girl, living in Mexico, my bedroom ceiling was bamboo stalks laid together. You could hear the scorpions walking around up there at night. And occassionally . . . one would drop down on the bed.

:shock:

What are some of your favorite bug stories?

I was recently bitten by a spider. Not the first time and not the last. All of us have probably been bitten a few times, but we just don't know it.

This bite however came at an extremely inopportune time and place, both where I was working and where on my body. Right boob, just under the lacy edge of my bra. Because of what I was doing at the time, I had to tolerate it with no more than a quick brush, so I couldn't find the crushed beast. However, it looked brown and small, no more than a dime size. Right location for a brown recluse... In a dusty room with old boxes and moldering books.

The bite site festered and showed signs of incipient sepsis. I went for emergency treatment at a walk in a couple of days after the bite... The pain at that time was significant. Hospitalization was out. Wound culture was out. My educated self wound treatments at home were now out. The doc brought in other docs for wow purposes and all the staff now recognizes me as the girl with the festering tit. I suppose they are a bit more restrained about it, but the glowing purple corona around a black and necrotic bite wound is probably high on their lists of Gross Things Seen at Work. Subsequent entrenched staph infection, scar tissue, multiple antibiotics and topicals and special dressings. All out of pocket, I'd say this spider bite cost me between $600 and $800. Only, I'm no longer employed by the service that sent me to that god-forsaken armpit of humanity. So really thousands more. And uncounted more because of the lack of insurance and other bennies.

We think now that this was not a brown recluse. We don't know what it was exactly, but a brown recluse bite should have been more painful immediately.

I like spiders. I rarely kill them.

oooh, sad story, Lizzie. Black widow, maybe? Hope your tit is on the mend!

Sad to say, we have both brown recluse and black widows here. I had to move out of one apartment, because the porch was infested.

Nah, I know from black widows, too.

I've been bitten or stung by a number of insects that would freak others out. The worst was a velvet ant, aka cowkiller, a ground dwelling wasp that is covered with scarlet hairs on the carapace. I knew what I saw, but it took several days for us to find some university entomologist to confirm. Pain was excruciating, and I am extremely pain tolerant. Three days in bed, with foot in a bucket of ice. I'd keep it there until the freezing was too painful, then rest it on a towel for ten to twenty minutes until the pain was intolerable, return it to the ice water. This was around the clock. The pain from either the bite or the ice would wake me so I spent three days in a very drowsy state. I was stung on a Thursday at 6 PM or so, and late Sunday afternoon the pain abated with no followup twinges. Absolutely no indicators save pain to identify the site.

Pics here.Beautiful creature, though.

wow, yeah. wow. You must be so sweet!

I've never been bitten. I think I've only been stung by a scorpion once. No biggie. But needless to say, I don't haunt any woodpiles around here, or anything.

My other big bug story came when I was a 17-year old freshman in college. It was in Mexico, and a friend and I rented some little shanty at the bank of someone's house. We were so desperate to get out of the dorms--why is that, I wonder now? Anyway, this place had such minimal plumbing, the kitchen sink drained out a hole in the back. Two rooms, very, very basic in a dirt street colonia.

One afternoon I was sitting on my bed when I looked down, and there was this . . . .CREATURE scuttling toward me. Bright orange, big as a softball, too many legs!

and it was between me and the door.

After spending some time shrieking, I finally got the nerve to LEAP over it, grab the broom and pummel the shit out of it.

Still don't know what it was, other than the biggest freakin' spider I ever saw. It looked like a crab, but after I got through making sure it was dead, dead, dead, there wasn't enough left to identify the species.

I remain pretty traumatized by this event. :sweat:

Yeah, I can picture that! Sorry to laught at your misfortune, but it is a humorous story this long removed.

I experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance with any of my negative insect related experiences. I'm awed by Nature, wowed by the individual observations, and can separate that almost completely from any natural feelings of revulsion or fear. So I would hyperventilate a little at the idea of going barefoot in my cracker back yard after the velvet ant bite, and for a brief moment think I should asphalt the entire thing, but my earth mother nature would relish the fragile ecosystem. Very odd position to be in.

It's the same hearing about your ginormous spider experience. Fascinating and curious, but I can empathize with your fear as well.

Okay someone tell a good bug story. Cloud's experiences and mine are fine, but yours will add another dimension, nu?

they're all too manly to be frightened of little ol' bugs (sticks out tongue)

I have a love/hate relationship with bees--they love me, and I hate them.

One recent night, I left my window screen open for some idiotic reason, and awoke in the morning to find a gigantic bee hovering mere inches from my face.

All I could do was stay very still, and say my bee prayer to myself (pleasegoawaypleasegoway). Thank god it flew back out the window, after what seemed like an eternity.

Bees are attracted to sweet people.
Or people that drink sweet booze.
Oh yeah, purple eye shadow too.

On the news last night they had a clip of a truck that overturned carrying bee hives. Lots and lots of bee hives. About 20 people in hazmat suits and bee keepers headnets, cleaning up.

Hmmm... interesting question, I wonder if the nets are one of the standard pieces of equipment for a emergency team truck? I suppose they would be handy if they suspected West Nile mosquitoes, nasty ants or a crawl space full of black widow spiders.

A friend was an EMT. She described the 'banana suit' they had on the truck for any situation that required coverage. It was a hazmat suit, but could be used for other needs including insects and filth. It would not be something you'd want to put on unless necessary. They also have disposable gowns and masks for lesser stuff.

An old love was allergic to bee and wasp stings. Or so he said. Funny, his mama didn't recall that. Anyhow, he would give this high pitched yelp if he saw one of the little fuckers, and run and lock himself in a bathroom or closet, stuffing the cracks in the doors. Then he'd plead with me to hurry up and get rid of the critter.

I suppose I should be more afraid of them. My older brother and I were toddlers playing in our backyard when we stumbled into a yellowjacket nest. They say I was stung more than a dozen places, and he was twice that. Neither of us are particularly fearful, but we both remember the fuss made over us with the sharp tang of ammonia and the feel of the ice packs.

I've been stung scores of times over the years, hazard of being a country boy, and sometimes multiple stings at once. Twice I've had a bad reaction to single stings. The first was on the cheek, just below my eye, where I'd expect to react, if I was going to. The second was just a sting on the calf, no big deal, but my leg got really swollen and put me down for a day.

Doesn't make sense, but it has made me more apprehensive about stings, wondering if I'll have another reaction. Therefore, when I do get stung, I treat it with copious amounts of alcohol, usually Bourbon, plus keep it warm and moist.

Wolf's wonderful bug story from here

LOL!

Maybe it was a messenger trying tell you something.

I dunno (says the atheist), a praying anything would be a yawner for me. Mantises are a lovely color, though.

I always thought they should be called Preying Mantises.

My understanding is that they will bite humans if handled incorrectly. Could be wrong.

Bourbon as first aid? Definitely on my list. Thanks for the tip.

Ammonia is alkaline and an effective neutralizer for formic acid. It does help if immediately applied to wasp stings or ant bites. Our lovely fire ants will leave welts and cute tiny pustules of localized staph infection as well as a tolerable sting and less tolerable itch. If you immediately swab them with ammonia the pain and itch and swelling and infection are all eliminated. I've had dozens of bites at one time with no after effects.

I think I'll see if bourbon enhances the efficacy.

I think it's supposed to be administered internally!

Sure. Drink the bourbon, swab the ammonia. Just be careful when you have 18 little stingers.

Somewhere in the Cellar, there's a picture of a mantis eating a bird it caught, on the wing. Reached out and snagged it flying by.

I had this patient that was an interesting case all by herself. "Wrath of God type of stuff." Her communication was severely limited. Her stress level was through the roof. Anything I could say about why would be speculation and an invasion.

There was always something new with her: some new crisis as with failure to thrive, combativeness, ravenous hunger and others all cycling.

Most of the time she had rashy and/or welted skin conditions, and a compulsion to scratch herself bloody. Whenever we had a change of staff bringing in new nurses someone would misdiagnose scabies.

Scabies leave some tell tale signs, of which she had none. They afflict certain places more than others, and that wasn't her problem. They are easily acquired and transferred to others. As with someone who has lice, the mere mention of it starts health care workers scratching everywhere. I'm itchy just writing about it.

Docs would order treatment on the entreaties from nursing, and she'd have to be bathed or examined or salved on some schedule for whatever someone thought they saw. Her roommate never acquired any of this despite the both of them roaming about the locked unit and ending up in each others beds or chairs or clothing.

I've had patients with scabies and it's a challenge. The little critters burrow in the epidermis and leave silvery and sometimes black trails. They lay eggs which can persist through treatments, and the health care worker doing the treating can easily pick up scabies without knowing it for a day or more. Just a hint of wrist between gown and glove, or an ill advised brush of the hair off of a sweaty face and neck can provide the ideal location for an infestation.

when i was younger, myself & a couple of other girls were at vbs playing outside around an old stump. unknown to us there was some kind of bee hive - we stirred it up. they flew all over us. (please note i was a child, well atleast maybe 8 or 9) anyway i had this shirt with a pear on it and my reasoning was they were attracted to it - so in front of several people i took my shirt off and slung it away from me - yeah probably not a good idea but oh well. ended up with about 3 or 4 stings

i once saw a 13 year old kid get bit on the neck by a scorpion of decent size in Mexico a few years ago. he foamed at the mouth and they rushed him to the nearest hospital... 4 1/2 hours away.

what was scarier was seeing those things - can't recall their proper name - but are commonly referred to as "baby killers". they kinda look like half crab, half spider and can jump a few feet to inject its venom into your body.

ooooh, maybe that's the thing I killed!

My favorite bug story:

My parents live in a house in the suburbs of Washington, DC. In the back yard, there's a beautiful, old-growth maple tree. My mother loves it.

Now, when I was maybe three years old, the 13-year locusts hatched, and our entire neighborhood was full of them. I don't know how widespread they are geographically, but if you have never seen this phenomenon, it is important to know that they are everywhere -- meaning that this huge tree in our backyard was completely covered with locusts.

My mom was worried that the locusts would destroy the bark and kill the tree, so she ran outside with a bucket filled with some kind of poison and started picking the locusts off the tree and dropping them in the bucket as fast as she could, working her way around the circumference of the tree.

When she got to the opposite side of the tree, though, she ran into the competition -- a large raccoon that was working his way around the tree in the opposite direction, picking up the locusts and popping them in his mouth.

Both the raccoon and my mom shrieked and ran away in opposite directions. :D

I read... somewhere... that this is the year for a large population of 17 year cicadas in North America.

Same source said that pets and wild animals will feast to gluttony on the plump insects as they rise from the ground.

I have a lot of strange recipes, but one that I always liked was an Amerindian dish of fried locusts. Use a cast iron skillet, put in the locusts, cook over fire until they pop. The caution was you must use a lid or they will fly away. D'oh.

3 years ago i was vacationing in the dominican republic staying at a friends, fathers villa. it was soo hot i ended up dragging my aero mattress out onto the second floor balcony. in the middle of my sleep i wake up to my friends screaming for me to wake up, when i do there is this crazy big spider chillin right next to me on the wall. this thing looked like an anorexic king crab spider with trippy ass colors. as soon as i jumped up it took off but now that i think about it, it was probably hanging out by me to catch all the other insects i was attracting so even though spiders freak me out, i still appreciate them every bit.

hee! :)

My dog liked to very patiently watch them shed their skins and then chomp them the minute they were out. I guess they were more tender with the new skin?

Yup, up in the midwest. They were in my area in 2004.

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