I really was having a good day...so much for that  

Really I did have a good day. I went for a walk on the beach. I bought yummy samosas. And now I'm not going to be getting to sleep anytime soon which really sucks because I've been sleeping poorly all week. I hate bugs. I hate bugs in my apartment. But I really, really, really hate bugs on me. When I was a kid we were poor. And we once lived in this horrible house. Actually we lived there for a long time (from age 6 to 14 I think). The problem we had there eventually got much better but I guess you could say that it kinda scarred me. This house was tiny. The rent was cheap (for a reason). It had no basement. It was cheaply constructed and poorly maintained. And every spring it became infested with bugs. It was some sort of beetle. I don't think it was a June bug but it was like a June bug. Hell maybe it was a June bug. Whatever it was it black, some sort of beetle, it flew and it was was hard as hell to kill. And we had them by the hundreds. No, I'm not joking. I'm really not exaggerating. Hundreds. Things would be fine and then suddenly one night I would wake up and my room, which I shared with my teenage sister and cousin, would be full of them. The two of them were up for hours killing them one night. They killed about 200. In one night. In one room. I remember one really bad night. It was the night above where my sister and cousin killed about 200 of these vile things in our bedroom. I freaked out. What kid wouldn't? It was like living in your own personal horror movie. I put a blanket over my head, stood on a chair in our kitchen and cried and screamed my head off. Around midnight my mother called my aunt and took me to her place. I slept on her couch and I'm pretty sure that I didn't go to school the next day. That night was the worst I remember it being but the problem continued for years. (Don't bother asking why I never told anyone of these horrible conditions - I told a teacher once and she told me it was a bad dream and to forget about it. Grown ups suck.) Even today I really do not deal well with bugs in my apartment. I can kill them but only with a shoe or a book or something hard. In order to kill the crazy beetles in that horrid house that I'd love to plow over with a some type of very large destructive equipment you had to really push down hard on them to crush them. You could feel them crack under your fingers. I can still hear how it sounds and feel how it feels and it makes me shudder. The thought of it makes my back and neck tense. Not surprisingly with that many bugs eventually some would crawl on you. In fact, more than one night that's how we realized it was an infestation night. That and the sound of them bouncing against the ceilings. I still remember exactly how that sounded too. I can't abide the feel of a bug on me. My first reaction is to fling what ever body part it is that the bug is on as far away from the rest of my body as possible. Usually accompanied by the rest of me moving really, really fast from the location in which it happened. You know those superheroes that are suddenly behind their enemy before the enemy has any clue what's going on? That's me getting away from bugs. I have superhuman reflexes. And then after I get away I freeze. Like a mannequin. Like I was playing freeze tag. Like the room was filled with some sort of James Bond paralyzing gas that doesn't allow any part of me to move except my darting eyes wondering "Where the hell is it? Is it near me? Is it dead? How can I make it dead?" Some people think it's funny to put a fake bug on me. Or to mimic a bug crawling on me. Let me tell you that only to that once. I've never had anyone try more than once. If they did they likely would not be able to walk and would probably need a nose job. I was once at a boyfriend's place (one of the asshole ex's, not an idiot) when an earwig somehow managed to crawl up the couch and onto ME (earwigs are a very, very vile bug - so many legs...*shudder*). I was across the room and practically out the door before my boyfriend knew what the hell happened. A couple of years ago I was dating this guy (one of the idiots ex's, not one of the assholes) and we went to his roommate's cottage for the night. The place hadn't been visited in about a year and was in rough shape. It was infested with bats and mice. I tried to go to sleep that night but there things constantly moving in the walls and ceilings. I couldn't move. I could barely breathe. I basically just tossed and turned for hours, always on the verge of a full fledged panic attack. We left at sunrise. I fell asleep in the car after about 20 minutes. I was totally exhausted. My boyfriend still had to drive and he didn't get much sleep either. Serves him right for taking me to an infested cottage. I can't watch Fear Factor. Too many times where there are things crawling on people. I see it and I feel those bugs. I start to feel panicky. I start to feel like I'm going to vomit. The last few days I've seen a few ants (carpenter ants I think) and spiders in the apartment. It's spring. It's normal. It freaks me out but it's a level of freakedness I can deal with. But a little while ago I was stretched out on the futon as I usually am and was just thinking that I was sleepy enough to go to bed when an ant fell from the heating vent above the futon and directly on to me. I didn't even see it on me. I heard it fall. I felt it for the briefest of seconds before it was flung across the room and I froze in my deer-in-headlights pose. Now I'm tense and strung out. My skin is crawling. I'm twitchy. I feel things on me that aren't there. I see things out the corner of my eye and whip my head to see if it's another bug. I keep shuddering. My hair tickles the back of my neck and I slap at it. I don't deal well with bugs. But I really, really don't deal well with bugs on me.

   [ POSTED BY sassymonkey @ 4/20/2006 11:17:00 PM ] |

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