infestation!!

There are few things that irrationally scare me more than insects. I don't mean scared as in like "ew, bugs are gross." I mean body-gripping, throat-tightening, arms-flailing, trembling-in-a-corner scared. When I was little, it was only really obvious ones that scared me - cockroaches, large spiders, crickets, moths basically anything larger than half an inch I kept wide berth from but the older I get, the larger my circle of fear becomes.

When I was 8, a dragonfly landed on my arm and clutched on with its spindly legs. All I can remember from that encounter was the way its sticky grip felt along my arm, the way it's bulbous eyes kept staring straight at me and the cold, all encompassing fear that filled my entire body. In the end, after what felt like eons of furious arm flailing the creature decided it was bored of its perch and lazily buzzed away. Even to this day, I get a nervous flutter when I see dragonflies in my vicinity.

When I was 11, I was getting into my parents' car when I noticed a what looked like a butterfly sticker stuck onto the pavement. I leaned in closer and felt my body tense and my stomach lurch - it was a dead monarch butterfly that must have gotten run over by our car. There it was laying there, perfectly flat, plastered like some decal ironed onto our driveway. Lifeless. Disgusting. And that was how butterflies were added to my ever expanding neurotic repertoire of bug paranoia.

My most scarring bug experience however, occurred one sunny afternoon when I was in college. My friend Amy and I were walking along a quiet, residential road in Decatur on our way to some bohemian, outdoorsy festival being held in the Virgina Highlands when suddenly Amy stopped and fidgeted.

"I think a leaf fell into my shirt," she said turning to me, "I can't seem to shake it out, would you mind taking a look?"

I peeked down the back of her shirt. Squirming against the small of her back and the loose yellow fabric of her tee-shirt was a buggy eyed insect with spindly legs and long, translucently veined wings. My worst nightmare had been realized. Inner world implodes. My memory of the events that followed are rather hazy as I'm pretty sure my brain promptly shut down out of blind fear.

Afterwards, Amy told me that as soon as I had looked down her shirt, my eyes got this crazy look in them and in a matter of seconds, my face had turned ashen. At first she wasn't freaked out but then I started hyperventilating and gasping something about "wings! wings!" In short, I started having a panic attack and became completely incomprehensible.

I remember trying to put as much distance between Amy and I as possible but failing spectacularly as Amy by then had clenched onto me with a vice-like grip and proceeded to whack me repeatedly with her free hand. All the while she kept yelping, her voice rising an octave with each repetition, "WHAT'S IN MY SHIRT? WHAT'S IN MY SHIRT??"

In the melee, the bug I suppose decided that everything was getting a bit too hectic for his liking and flew off. Of course Amy and I were so busy mutually driving each other to higher states of hysterics that we didn't even notice when the winged menace left. I can only imagine what an insane sight we must have been to all the residents looking out from their windows. Two girls flipping out in broad daylight to an invisible assailant. Embarrassing.

Today, I walked out of my apartment and was greeted by sunshine and warm winds. Pleasant surprise. I walked to my office and found the walls of the bottom floor dotted with small fruit flies. Unpleasant surprise.

I put the memory out of my mind and went to my desk. I was enjoying my morning breakfast of orange juice and a meat bun when all of a sudden, I saw a fly the size of a large California raisin buzzing around my cubical. I immediately froze up like a deer in the headlights and felt the familiar creep of incapacitating fear. I watched powerlessly on as it had its way with all my mini foods moving from my mini ice creams over to my mini airline tray and finally on my mini pastries collection (nooo! not my mini doughnut eraser!!). After it had satisfied itself it flew off, circling my head twice to make sure I knew who was boss. I haven't seen it since but needless to say, today has been quite stressful.