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I have never been a fan of insects. My poor mother tried very hard to get me to like them. She was always a bit of a tomboy and would pick up bugs, show them to me, try to get me to hold them.
I would run away screaming. I was a girly girl. I think it must be in the genes.
My daughter is much more of a tomboy. My mom would show her bugs, and my daughter would happily take them into her hand. I watched her hold June bugs, ladybugs, pill bugs, and even ants (though I had to put a stop to that since some ants bite).
I tried very hard not to influence my daughter against bugs or heights (two of my least favorite things). I pretended not to be scared of either, but lately it’s proven difficult. I don’t know if there’s something about the weather or we have food out or what, but this last week I have found no less than 5 dead or dying roaches in the house. I have also called the exterminator and moved up our next appointment.
Now, roaches are my husband’s territory. His job is to pick them up and dispose of them. But these five were found when he was either out of town or at work. And three of the five were spotted by Baby Galen’s eagle eye. I had no choice but to deal with them myself. For a still flailing roach, that means I use the vacuum and the longest extension I have to suck the roach up. If the roach is small and dead, I’ll get it with a paper towel. If the roach is big and dead, I do the same thing but I also have to shriek and yell and repeat, “I don’t like it!”
Baby Galen thought that looked like a lot of fun and ran around shrieking and screaming, “I don’t like it!” the next day, that had turned into, “I don’t like bugs. Yucky! Blech.” With the accompanying sound effects.
Oops. Grandma will be so disappointed.
What really creeps you out? Roaches? Spiders? Snakes? I have a friend who cannot stand even the thought of frogs.
Filed in: family,Shana Galen
Jul 2nd
2012
3:09 am
Katherine Garbera Said:
Snakes beyond creep me out, Shana. I grew up on the edge of the Green Swamp in Florida and there were snakes all over our property. My dad said (and still does) they are more afraid of you than you are of them, but I don’t think so. I have nightmares about snakes.
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Jul 2nd
2012
5:45 am
Karen Said:
Spiders I’m okay with but cockroaches freak me out too and yes its my husband’s job to dispose of those. I live in Queensland Australia and moved to an acreage property and when the kids and I saw our first snake I don’t think we went outside for a week. My daughter was only about 18 months old at the time and wasn’t scared at all and in fact walked towards it to have a better look and I think that frightened me most of all. Oh and cane toads are just disgusting!
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Jul 2nd
2012
7:40 am
Connie Fischer Said:
I hate bugs! As a child I would hold a June bug or a granddaddy long legs spider, however, when I think about that today, I get the whole body shivers thing. Spiders and roaches are at the top of my Nasty List! We had a house in Cape Coral, Florida and I was forever fighting roaches sneaking in. Yes, in Florida, they’re called Palmetto bugs. Oh no, Girlfriend, they’re still roaches! I was always afraid to vacuum them up because as tough as they are, I figured that after their heads stopped spinning from the journey up the hose, they would find a way to crawl out and GET ME!! YUK!
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Jul 2nd
2012
8:23 am
Shana Said:
And, see, Katherine, I’m not afraid of snakes at all. It’s the little creepy crawlies that bug me.
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Jul 2nd
2012
8:24 am
Shana Said:
Karen, I have never seen a cane toad. I almost googled it, but then I thought, if it freaks Karen out, do I want to see it? No. My sister is in Uganda, and she made the mistake of Googling the spiders there. They have some pretty serious spiders!
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Jul 2nd
2012
8:26 am
Shana Said:
Connie, palmetto sounds so much nicer than roach, but they are still yucky! And I worried the roach I sucked up would get me too, but it was almost dead. Still, I was careful when opening the closet where the vacuum is stored for a few days afterward. Revenge of the roaches!
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Jul 2nd
2012
8:47 am
wendy p Said:
I am completely with you, I absolutely HATE bugs.My husband, when we were dating, thought it would be wonderful to take me to the Butterfly Museum here in our area where you walk around while literally millions of butterflies fly around you – darn if those things just didn’t know that I was the one person there that didn’t want them anywhere near me as they kept landing on me…we were there maybe all of 5 minutes before I completely freaked out.
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Jul 2nd
2012
8:58 am
Cindy Kirk Said:
I hate….BIG spiders. The kind that jump!
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Jul 2nd
2012
9:16 am
Shana Said:
Wendy, we have a butterfly museum here too. I don’t mind them, but I don’t necessarily want them touching me. I’m sure that was a waste of 10 bucks on your husband’s part!
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Jul 2nd
2012
9:17 am
Shana Said:
Cindy, I skyped with my sister in Uganda the other day, and she had a big rash on her neck. She said it was a spider bite. Apparently, her spiders are as big as her hand. AND they jump. Yuck!
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Jul 2nd
2012
9:40 am
Sandi in OH Said:
Our oldest son grew up loving bugs. I’ve had a praying mantis living on my green drapes, jars containing sand and ants, jars of grasshoppers, a jar holding a cocoon in the refrigerator. I don’t mind bugs. I told him that if he ever brought a snake into the house, his belongings could be found in the middle of the street. As my grandmother would have said, I can’t abide snakes.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:41 pm
Shana Said:
LOL, Sandi! I was afraid this might become the situation with Baby Galen, so maybe her dislike of bugs isn’t such a bad turn of events.
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Jul 2nd
2012
10:37 am
Nancy Robards Thompson Said:
I hate lizards and geckos. I know they won’t hurt me, but they make me hurt myself.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:42 pm
Shana Said:
I’m not fond of them, either, Nancy. I usually try to catch them and shoo them out.
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Jul 2nd
2012
12:10 pm
Margo Maguire Said:
Spiders. Any kind.
I might not like snakes if I lived in an area where there were poisonous ones around. But it’s been years since I’ve even seen a snake – will probably see one when we go out to the country on the 4th. But generally, snakes do not creep me out.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:43 pm
Shana Said:
As you know, I grew up in Michigan, and my brother would always take me to look for snakes with him. We’d bring home snakes and turtles and then let them go again.
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Jul 2nd
2012
12:45 pm
catslady Said:
Normally my outlook is anything that has 8 legs or more is something I can’t stand (although I found out when living in Mississippi for about 9 months that those cockroaches are horrid things too lol). Spiders and thousand leggers and the many legged critters move too fast for my liking – yuk.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:43 pm
Shana Said:
Personally, catslady, if it has more than 4 legs, I’m not a fan.
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Jul 2nd
2012
1:02 pm
Kristan Higgins Said:
Hummingbirds. Go figure.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:44 pm
Shana Said:
Kristan, Kristan, Kristan.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:11 pm
Gayle Cochrane Said:
Hidden spiders, overly leggy spiders, and odd spiders of unknown origins. I am always afraid that there is a spider waiting under the handle of the garbage can,in my garden gloves or in my shoes. I would say spiders in general, but I don’t mind garden spiders, wolf spiders and daddy long legs. I tried to be brave when DD was little, but my bravery has worn off.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:44 pm
Shana Said:
I tried to be brave, too, but obviously my bravery only lasted about 2 years. Now she sees a spider and screams in imitation of me. Sigh.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:18 pm
Hellion Said:
Snakes. I mean if a bug flies up in my face, it’s dead, but otherwise, I can be live and let live about most bugs. Unless they’re hanging out in my house, trailing a long line across the floor and making me look horribly slovenly. (Thanks, ants.) Then I will lay out some traps and kill them. Roaches are gross, but I don’t usually screech about them.
But snakes. I lose my frickin’ mind about snakes. I remember once there was a little bitty one outside the farm house, on the sidewalk, and I screamed in the house for Dad to kill it. I was probably about 30. He would have been 83. He killed it and didn’t seem remotely phased.
I thought the best part of moving out of a farm house to the city was “no snakes” but one October, I had just had my dishwasher replaced and I was getting ready for work one Monday. I left my bedroom and saw something squiggle distinctively snake-like against my floor into the bathroom. The room became strangely airless. Then I freaked the hell out. I screamed at the snake (tiny–my ex-friend called it worm-like), then bolted out of the bathroom to find something to trap it. Oddly enough, I didn’t think I should kill it, so I trapped it in tupperware, screaming as its snakey tail TOUCHED ME. Then I put a lid on it so it didn’t crawl back out. Then I called my apartment manager, while climbing on my couch and said “There’s a MFing snake in my MFing apartment!”–manager did not answer phone. I ended up taking the snake to work to deposit him into the woods far from where I live. I did not want a repeat intruder.
I’m not good with snakes. There was a time we went swimming in a lake–and someone said they SAW a snake, and I flew out of that lake. My friends said they’d never seen anyone walk on water before.
I don’t have any issue with lizards. Go figure.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:46 pm
Shana Said:
Wow, Hellion. You really don’t like snakes. I think it is a fear most people share, and it’s probably instinctive because it protects us from poisonous snakes. You would not want to know that we petted a snake the last time we were at the zoo.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:35 pm
Melody May Said:
When you live in the south you just get use to cockroaches. But I can’t stand snakes and spiders. Just thinking about snakes creeps me out.
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Jul 2nd
2012
2:47 pm
Shana Said:
Melody, I have lived in Houston since 1982. I am still not used to cockroaches.
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