Why I am a wimp, part I

I scream at bugs.

I do.

Today I was reaching for a container on top of the fridge, and a spider about the size of my thumbnail nearly crawled onto my thumbnail.

I screamed -- (just a little scream)

-- and withdrew my hand.

*Little laugh*.

I then rescued the container from the spider and moved on with life.

A couple of weeks ago I suffered a much more traumatic bug encounter.

Jonathan dropped a timer into an uncovered heating vent in the bathroom. It wasn't the sort of thing that would roll, that timer, which meant it should be right there at the mouth of the hole.

I gathered up all my bravery and stuffed it into the mouth of that part of my brain that would complain that this was a bad idea. I then reached my bare hand into that dark gaping hole, to feel for the timer. I had to twist my arm a bit to even get my hand in there.

Sure enough, I felt something down there, only it felt a little ... bumpy. The timer should be smooth. I felt around a bit more for the timer, but no luck. That bumpy thing was in the way. So I grabbed the bumpy object and pulled out ...

A giant black beetle!

I screamed! And ran to the opposite side of the bathroom.

Jonathan, who had been watching, heard me scream and saw me run. He let out his own bloodcurdling scream, and climbed onto the toilet seat.

Tim came running down the hall in a panic. What had become of his wife and child? Had they lost an arm into the black hole?

Instead of finding our blood all over the bathroom floor, he found the large black corpse of a dead beetle on the bathroom floor. And wife and child cringing away from said corpse in terror.

Tim laughed.

Jonathan shook himself, climbed down from the toilet seat, and laughed.

I shuddered a bit, disposed of the corpse, shuddered a bit more. Then laughed a little myself.

But the timer is still down there somewhere. I'm not reaching into that hole again.