Creeped Out and a Little Bit Paranoid

Can someone please tell me why there are so many spiders, building so many webs  that stretch out in extremely annoying places in early September?  Even bug boy doesn’t like spider time.

The other day I was doing this…

…and I had to keep dodging these…

Creepy.

At one point I mowed through a web that was stretched between two evergreens but I never saw the spider who made the web.  As a result, I kept feeling a phantom spider crawling on me for the next half an hour or so.  In my hair.  On my leg.  On my elbow.  In my ear.  Ugh.  I’m feeling all itchy just thinking about it.

I don’t like rodents much either, but at least they know their proper place in our society and stay hidden away, unlike spiders who flaunt their creepy, sinister, hairy-legged beastliness to us.  It’s just not right.

This is also giant grasshopper time.  Our backyard borders a cornfield, and the area within about 6 feet from the fence is infested with thousands of giant grasshoppers.  Bug Boy loves this, and I don’t usually mind so much, but the other day while I was mowing, the grasshoppers were hopping and flying away from me, while their less agile friends were cruelly mutilated by my lawn mower, which left me feeling really very guilty thinking about all the baby grasshoppers I had just orphaned.  There was one giant grasshopper in particular who finally did me in.  On my first sweep along the fence, I must have injured him, because as I was heading back again, I saw him hobbling frantically away from me.  I passed him and he made it!  Of course I came back again, and over and over he just narrowly missed my mower.  I actually began to pull for him until I realized that the poor guy was heading triumphantly yet tragically straight to the pool and certain death, while surely (what was left of) his distraught family helplessly watched.  This made me pretty sad.

But then I started to think, what if Mr. Giant Grasshopper was like the mafia boss of the grasshoppers, or maybe even  the gentle, beloved grandpa of the grasshoppers, and all of his goombahs/grandchildren decided to seek revenge on the Grasshopper Hacker (their name for me).

And then I got this clear picture of me waking up one morning to the buzzing sound of thousands of jaws, opening my eyes to see grasshoppers galore sitting and waiting for me, on my dresser, on the ceiling fan blades, on my comforter, their vengeful eyes boring into me with the intense hatred only angry grasshoppers can feel when they witness their sweet grandpa mercilessly chased by a bloody lawn mower into a pool.  Gah!

I think maybe I do a little too much thinking while I am mowing the lawn.  Maybe I need to use my iPod more, or practice my states and capitals to perfection, or think of witty retorts for all the conversations I’ve stumbled through  for the last twenty years or so.

So to recap:

Spiders = creepy

Grasshoppers = vengeful

Beth = paranoid, slow-witted, states/capitals expert