animals: creepy crawlies

I used to think that if you got stuck by a hornet, you only had 30 seconds to live unless you got inside a house. I used to practice running from the garden to the house and timed myself. I also thought that if a hornet flew into your bedroom at night, that if you held your breath, they wouldn't know you're alive and wouldn't sting you...

I used to wonder if puddles were really just oceans for ants.. and wondered if they ever wondered what it would be like to sail over the ocean.

Leafs made nice rafts, so on went the ants floating off on their leaf-boats..

When i was in girlscouts we would go "Snipe" hunting. Apparently these were flying squirrels/mice that would jump into your hair. We would go late at night and make sure we didn't get caught by them.

When I was younger, somebody told me that you had to be really careful if you're around mosquitos, because if you weren't paying attention then they would ball up and squeeze into your ear and never come out. If there were any mosquitos around, I would hold my hands over my ears. Even today they make me sort of uncomfortable...

I used to believe…

the if you swallowed a fly by accident that you would then grow an appetite for dirt.

I used to believe that if I didn't brush my teeth at night, ants would crawl into my mouth and eat my teeth.

When I was young I used to think I was God for the ants as they couldn't see me, their sky was as far as my knees

I used to be terribly afraid of getting bitten by a mosquito because I thought that was how you caught Meningiococcal disease.

When I was very young I had a nanny that could catch bees and remove the sting to make them harmless and let me play with them before they died. When she left no matter how many times I got stung trying to play with bees I would respond to my mum's warnings with "Bees are not bad! They are my friends, only that one was a mean one!". It took nine bee stings to enlighten me and sixteen years later I'm still alergic!

When I was little, (6, I'm 10 now,) I thought earwigs did crawl into your ears. Now I know that they used to be called earwings, for their ear shaped wings. It changed into earwigs, because their pinchers look like the tools for cleaning ears. Mosquitoes actually crawl into your ear, though. If they puncture the eardrum you can lose your hearing. Thats why we have earwax.

I used to believe that if I caught butterflies, a fairy would grow inside.

My father told me that dragon flies were darning needles, and they would sew your ears shut. I was always afraid of them.

I used to be afraid that I would get burnt by the light on lightning bugs when you go to catch them because to me they looked like flying Christmas tree lights off the string that I had been burnt with that past Christmas.

I used to believe that dragonfly bites were dangerous. I believed they could burrow under your skin and live in your head and your brain would be where they stored their eggs. I also used to believe that if you touched anything dead and didn't wash your hands in at least half an hour, you'd turn to dust.

I used to think that spiders would crawl under my skin and lay their eggs in my body and then the baby spiders would crawl out of my ears. Thanks to my older brother, I still think spiders are creepy.

My brother was 15 when he thought this. I showed him a picture of a giant african land snail. He said "Oh my God! Are they this big?" he held out his arms as far as they would go. I said nothing. Then he said "Oh my God! They're this big!" He went on about how big they were, and that they must be faster than normal snails becasue they were so big too. (He has a phobia of slugs and snails) He beleived this untill after about a minute when he told my parents. They told him how big they really were.