There Was A Bug

A ***BIG*** freaking bug!

Okay, so it wasn’t a huntsman spider from Australia or a camel spider. But it was far, Far, FAR bigger than I was expecting. Especially since I wasn’t expecting it at all.

I was driving at the time. I felt something on my left hand, on the steering wheel, and looked down to find SpiderZilla crawling across the back of my hand.

I used words my mother would not approve of at truly astonishing volume.

I did not lose control of the car. But not for lack of trying. My attention was definitely elsewhere, despite my speed and the number of cars and trucks surrounding me.

While screaming like a little girl expressing my dismay, since I couldn’t really use my right hand to swat at it, I shook my hand and it fell off.

Which is not necessarily better.

You see it, right?

SpiderZilla is now down on the floor. Or on the seat. Or on my leg. Or crawling up my pant leg. Or…

Should I pull over? Stop in the middle of traffic? While that would no doubt be my first move if it had been a rattlesnake, it wasn’t clear that blocking a lane in rush hour was called for. Not for a…

…a what? What kind of spider had it been, besides **BIG**? Was it actually a spider? It had looked…

I had only seen it for half a second as I was freaking out. Yeah, it was a bug, it might have been a spider – but it might have been a cricket or something else, I guess. Maybe.

It was brown. If it was a spider, was it a brown recluse, a “brown widow”? Did they get that big, and if so, why am I still living in this part of the world?

And then…

There it was, crawling up from below. Fortunately, not on me. It was coming up the side of the center console.

Yes, it was that big, probably at least four inches long. No, it probably wasn’t a spider. But no, I had no freaking idea what it was.

My best guess is some sort of mantis or “walking stick” bug. Not like anything I had ever seen before around these parts.

But now I wanted it dealt with. Permanently. Before I did lose control of the car and be without a decent excuse about why I caused the accident that was going to happen  if I didn’t deal with it.

So with a clear shot, while holding my lane and watching out for traffic ahead, I squished that little bugger into next week’s protoplasm.

Not what a good entomologist would do, but I was a physics major, so screw that!