Insects

Insects freak me out. I don't really fear them, but if I can avoid them I do. Especially all the ones that can fly. Should someone ever make me choose between being covered in cockroaches or spiders - I'd go for spiders any day. I think the flying freaks me out for two reasons (a) the noice. And how, when it is dark sometimes, you only hear them and can't see them and (b) they have a tendency of flying close to my face and especially my ears, so the noice of the fluttering gets almost physical *brr* (and (c) when I had longer hair, they did get tangled up in it *brrrr*).

We were at the beach earlier on this week and I was snickering a bit as my youngest daughter would not lie down and relax after she noticed how many grasshoppers there were. I said they were so tiny, only 1-2 cm long, but she was not convinced and sat watching them. But I fell asleep. And woke up with a grasshopper fluttering in my ear. *yikes*

So, as if that wasn't enough insect-excitement for one week, tonight me (and again my youngest daughter) suddenly heard a very familiar sound. Both hoping it was from outside, but me realizing it must be inside as I was downstairs while she was upstairs. We had a noisy grasshopper in the house... You know what they're like, right? They play their little tune but as soon as you move towards the sound, they shut up. So did this one. It only played once, and though we checked around "everywhere" it just was not to be seen. So after a while we started believing that it had in fact been outside. Maybe on the balcony which would explain how both of us could hear it.

No worries. Off to bed. And there I was enjoying a new book, when suddenly I thought I felt a *thump* on my sheet. Not to get too excited, I decided just to shake it a bit with my feet, and that's when I heard a second *thump* but now on the floor. FFS! Freak out time! During the two seconds it took me to sit up, look the other way and wondering how to handle the thing I also had the time to think "this is what men are for!". When turning around I found a huge 10 centimeter motherf* grasshopper in my bedroom, which, sorry to say, is no more as I ended the poor creature's life when tossing 3 big books upon him. And then flushed it.