I'm a human bug light

Ok, seriously there's something wrong with me.

My whole life things have hit me in waves. I'll go through a period of time when some object (inanimate or animate) will bombard me. Some might call it synchronicity--you know, when fate sends you signs. The thing is, though, that I must not pay attention to these signs because they smack me in the face like a herd of buffalo. Or maybe it's more that I don't understand the signs. I dunno.

And see, I have clumpaphobia. I hate big clumps of things. When I was a kid, I went waterskiing for the first time, and the boys next door thought it would be funny to steer me through a school of flying fish. I'm not sure if that started my fear of clumps, but it sure as hell didn't help it. It certainly explains why I don't like to swim in murky water with fish in it. Ugh.

So back to the bug thing. In college, it was crickets--thousands of them--EVERYWHERE! I even ordered a sandwich from Wendy's, and there was a cricket grilled right into my chicken sandwich. Then, right around the time I was making the big jump to Chicago, I kept getting harassed by butterflies. Ok you might think they are all beautiful and delicate, but I think they are blood thirsty beasts, really. They swarm around me all the time, and during this particular period of my life, they couldn't get enough of me. And then they were all over gifts that people gave me--stationery, stained glass little thingamabobbies. I did get a few particularly pretty butterfly necklaces, though, and then I decided that butterflies were ok as long as they were fake or really far away.

Then it was ladybugs. Freakin' millions of ladybugs. Then ants. And most recently, it was dragonflies. I went to a friend's house, and there were so many freakin' dragonflies in front of the house that I could barely get in. Then they appeared at my apt and on gifts and things. Then, this past week it was fireflies which I haven't ever seen in Texas, but now that I live in the boonies, I see them. And my moving boxes all have firefly written on them, and a coworker was just talking about some show called firefly. Very weird.

Ok, so that brings me to today. Today, I've been touched by every bug imaginable. This morning, I walked outside face first into a huge ass spiderweb in front of my door (and one very large spider). Then as I'm locking my door, a grasshopper (whom I've named Henry) was perched on my doorknob where he waits every morning and every evening when I come home. Then these very strange mosquito looking things kept hovering over me as I went downstairs. And then at work I was accosted by wasps.

And now for the WORST PART OF MY DAY! I went to eat at a nearby steakhouse because I had a craving for a bloody steak, and I decided to splurge on dessert because I just wanted some damn dessert. So I'm eating this brownie thing, and I suddenly feel this odd texture in my mouth. It's a little crunchy, but more than that, there's something long and scratchy going on. I almost swallowed it, but just couldn't bring myself to do so, and I reached in and pulled out of my MOUTH a freakin' roach leg. Oh dear God. It was a roach leg. It had the little jaggedy hair things and little foot things, and OMG it was a roach leg.

I'm scared fucking to death of roaches. Normally, if there is a roach even in the room, I'm out the door so fast (hey that's an idea for my marathon speedwork) that a puma couldn't catch me. Today, I just sat and stared at it. I'm not sure if it was the endorphins from the hurt foot I have that just kept me from screaming or if I was just in pure shock, but I just stared at it. Yeah, looking back, it was shock for sure.

My friend at the time was in the bathroom, and he came back and saw my face which apparently was ghost white. He said, "Are you ok? What's wrong? What's wrong?" in this sort of worried tone, and I just picked up the freakin' leg (omg, I was totally in shock) and handed it to him, my mouth still full of unswallowed brownie.

At this point, I'm hoping that he will say, "Oh, that's just some grass or a stem or a stick or some weed that the bus boy dropped in your brownie." Nope. He says, "Oh God. Oh dear God. Oh Kim. Oh are you going to freak on me? Where's the rest of it?"

And that's when my stomach dropped to my knees. Yes, I had just eaten a roach. I'm not sure how much of one I ate, but sure as shit, there was the fucking leg sitting there.

So my friend calls the waiter over who promptly calls over the owner.

Now this woman...hmmmm...how can I describe her? She looked like the grandma from the Addams Family--grey hair all tangled and matted, toothless, strange tumor jutting out of her cheek like the tip of an iceberg. Her shirt is half untucked, and she comes up to the table and growls, "Waddya want?" Seriously, her voice was cackly, like a bartender at some local dive bar with pickled eggs behind the counter. Are you with me, here? Scary, scratchy, esophageal cancer kind of voice.

And again, at this point, still in shock, I'm thinking to myself, "This isn't real. This isn't happening. I'm dreaming this." And I'm sort of happy in this stupor until my friend says, "Kim, are you going to talk?"

I can't. I can't talk. I try to, and all I can muster is this weird seal sort of sound. I don't even think I made that sound because they just stared at me. So my friend shows Hagatha the leg and explains that he doesn't wish to make a scene but that I just pulled a roach leg out of my mouth.

Hagatha then pulls out a knife. I'm thinking, "Oh dear God she's going to kill us" but instead she starts slicing the freaking leg in two. And she says (no exaggeration on the accent), "Nope. Tat ain't no roach leg. Tain't. I'm tha owner, and I ain't seen no roaches here never. We gots professional bug killers come here all the time, so ain't no way we have roaches. But ah'll give you your food for free because of tha mental anguich of thinkin' it twere a roach."

you can imagine where this story went from here, so I won't go into it, but YUCK!

And THEN I came home to Henry, my doorgrasshopperman, and did a little cleaning. I opened the box of trash bags and yanked one out absentmindedly, and a big ass dead bumblebee hits me in the face. OMG. I am totally going to bed. This is way more than immersion therapy.