animals: creepy crawlies

When I was little I saw an American TV show with fishing in it. They were talking about different flies and mentioned wooly buggers. I asked what this was and my Dad said it meant sheep. I don't think he realised I took it at face value and was to continue using it for several years to come.

When I was 8, I grew up in a town where the main road ran through a swamp called "Rattlesnake Gulch". I hated when my father would drive through there because I always thought that rattlesnakes hung from the trees and would drop on the car.

I used to be extrememly gullible, especially when my brother told me things. Mostly, things about death. Like when we went on a camping trip and I picked a leaf off of a tree, he said it was "poison moose leaf" (?!) and that I would die within an hour because I had touched it. Then later in that day I found some little funnels in the dirt that I assumed were made by some sort of burrowing beetle. My brother said they were made my the "poison crab ant" and that, again, if I touched it I would die.
He also told me that the caterpillar I found was a "poison death caterpillar" and that I would die before sunset. The three of these had me efficiently flipping out the whole day.
Then, suddenly, it dawned on me...

When I was about 5 or 6, I was at my aunts house with a few of my cousins, and they all knew that I *hated* spiders. I went into the garage to get a toy of some kind, and when I came back, my cousin John threw a spider on me! To this day he swears that the spiders are conspiring against me. And whats worse? I believed him for years...when I was 15 I finally realized that the only time they were doing that was when he was around. I'm 19 now, so yeah...

My dad had an old-timer's saying, "If you wish to live and thrive, let a spider go alive." I took that to mean that if you squash a spider, you are in for a run of really bad luck!

When I was little I was always afraid that if my feet were sticking out from under the blanket that spiders, monsters, etc. would be more accessible to me. I'm 23 now and still cannot sleep unless my feet are covered by the blanket.

One day while playing with legos in the basement, my brother told me that all spiders were poisonous and that to keep away from all of them. At this point I noticed a long legged spider (Daddy long legs) and asked if that one was as well. As he pointed he put his finger as close to the spider as he could get it (in order to get it to crawl on him) and said that it was the most poisonous of all. Of coarse the spider did crawl on him to which he started pretending to die and tell me to get help so I ran upstairs screaming for mom. My brother came upstairs laughing his butt off, he said later it was worth the spanking.

I am still really afraid of spiders, that memory will stick with me forever!

when i was little i believed that it was up to me to build ants a place to live. so i would mold a clump of mudd into a house-like shape, (or atleast attempt) and build a little ant city. strangely enough, a colony of ants actually lived there for a while. haha

i did not understand the differences between snakes and worms. I distinctly remember being startled by a 2 inch long twig, fearing that it was a snake and that it would bite me.

If you pull off the leg of a spider it will rain

When I was very small I used to believe that if you put your fingers in the plug sockets loads of worms would come wriggling out of them and cover the room.... i used to try and figure out for ages how the worms came out of them.

One time when I was younger a dragonfly landed on my arm and left 5 marks, my mom said no that was a sewing needle, they only do that if you told a lie. She said 5 marks was 5 lies, she then told me I had to spill the beans on me and my brothers, if I didn't the sewing needle would come back and see my mouth shut for lying. I remember giving her a list of things, that I did and my brothers, she said to think harder, I spilled the beans. I found this website tonight only by mistake, I was researching what was the difference between sewing needles and dragon flys because I still get scared of sewing needles around me. Just the other day. I just learned tonight sewing needles are dragon flys, sewing needles are what our parents told us to confess. Both my parents have been deceased for 40 years, but I got a good laugh tonight remembering how she got me to confess to her saying a sewing needle was gonna see my mouth shut, I had that little scar for many years and never forgot it, and I still don't like them buzzing around me

I used to think that if I killed an insect, armies of its angry mourning friends would come to take their revenge on me.

I'm still kind of nice to spiders and ants... You never know...

I used to believe…

coming to a new country as an 8 yr old has strange consequences ... hoop snakes ... i was told these animals were so aggressive they would hold their tail in their mouth and roll along chasing you so they could bite

I used to believe that spiders were mutated rats that were shrunk!

My preschool grandaughter came running in from the backyard, all excited. Grandma, a SNAKE, a SNAKE! I went out to see a worm (the size of the snake in her picture book).