miws
I used to be incredibly creeped out by spiders, and other crawly bugs. Pretty much to the point that I want to keep an eye on them until I can figure out a way to remove them.
Basic houseflies, and bees bother me in a different way. Flies annoy me, because I just know their most recent place to visit before landing on me was a pile of dog dooky, and bees bother because they sting (although I’m not allergic AFAIK).
Then, relatively recently, like a couple of years or so ago, I seemed to lose that irrational fear of the crawly ones. I don’t want to pet them and cuddle them, but don’t totally freak out internally and/or externally, like I did for the first 50-ish years of my life.
For around the last month or so, I’ve been visited by those weird bugs I can only describe as flying beetles with long antennae. Quite often they are on the outside or inside of my window screens (apartment has the outward opening casement windows, with inside mounted screens). I usually grab the flyswatter, and smack the screen so that they fly, fly away, if on the outside of the screen, or smack ’em dead if on the inside of the screen, or window.
Last evening, sitting here at the computer, a bug buzzed by my face. At first, I perceived it as being no larger than a housefly. I cussed at it, and swatted at it with my hand, and felt it brush against the inside of my arm, as it landed upside down on the desk on it’s back, it’s little tiny legs moving back and forth like it’s wingless beetle buddies. Sufficiently creeped out I jumped up and tried to figure out what to do about it. The thought of smashing all over the desk with the flyswatter bothered me, as did the thought of grabbing it in a towel/paper towel.
So, I went with the old standby I hadn’t used in ages; grabbed the vacuum out of the closet, unwound the cord and plugged it in, fired up that 12 amps, and vacuumed him right off the desk!
Mike