Better Than Legos??
Monday, July 7, 2008 
“Dad, I wanna read the book instead of playtime tonight.”
I wish I recorded that. I will never hear that again. We play with Legos during his pre-bedtime playtime. Nothing trumps Legos in Fury’s mind.
As far as book reviews go, that says it all really. There’s nothing I can add to lend more credibility to this book, but I’ll try. For those of you who visit this blog, you may have noticed the badge on the right side that says BusyDad Tales. Some of you may have actually clicked on it before. If you enjoy the comics, chances are you (and your kids) will thoroughly enjoy the book Don’t Touch That! Because the same guy wrote it.
Yes, my partner in comic crime, Jeff Day, has written a kid’s book! A very entertaining and informative kid’s book. Don’t Touch That! is a guide to all things icky, poisonous and bite-y that one may encounter in the great outdoors. Like a field guide with all the boring stuff stripped out.
With chapters that cover all your basic categories (plants, insects, reptiles, mammals, etc.), Don’t Touch That! does a great job explaining the effects of everything from a poison ivy rash to a bite from a rabid critter. But more importantly, it teaches kids how to identify, avoid and treat scratchies and owies when they occur. And unlike me, Jeff actually knows what he’s talking about. He’s a doctor.
My favorite feature of this book? The cartoon illustrations scattered throughout the pages. They give the writing a twist, and to be honest, they themselves are a little twisted. But that’s what’s cool about it. This is not your typical nature book.
I was going to provide you with some excerpts, but I don’t like to type. Instead, here’s me and Fury reading some passages from the book:
Jeff informed me this weekend that his book is finally available through Amazon.com, and it’s starting to move. This could not have happened to a nicer, more talented guy. I highly recommend this book and you have my personal guarantee that it’s the best $9.95 you’ll ever spend on a book for your kid. And while you’re at it, check out his personal website. The guy can draw!
Of course, I’m all about the giveaways! I asked Jeff to give me a few copies to send to my readers. He not only sent me some, he drew a cartoon on each and autographed them. If you want to enter the drawing, please leave a comment about anything having to do with a creepy crawly experience that you or your kid has encountered. Please note that he will feature them on his website as well.
I’ll start:
When I was about 9, a yellowjacket landed on my burger. I did not see it. Yellowjackets do not like the inside of people’s mouths, apparently. He promptly retaliated by stinging me on the tongue. As I screamed, he seized that window of opportunity to crawl out my mouth and fly away. That bastard was telling the story to his pollen jock buddies for years to come.
Oh – and the trumping of Legos lasted a day and a half, in case you’re wondering. The next night, he asked me to sit by him and read the book. As he played with Legos. Spoil my kid much?
Reader Comments (49)
When I was about 9 and living in Abilene, Texas we encountered many nasty icky gross and downright horrible creepy crawlies. However, the best story I can remember is laying in bed one night with a sleepover buddy (hey - it was another 9 year old girl, get your minds out of the gutter!!) and she informed me that there was a bug on my pillow. Assuming that she was screwing with me, I just laughed and said sure. She proceeded to inist that there was a large bug on my pillow and it was getting ever closer to my head. It wasn't until she jumped out of bed that I finally realized - hey, there might actually be a bug on my pillow - and got up to look. There I saw a really ominous looking creature complete with this curlique tail. After much yelling and screaming and jumping around, we got the large bug off my pillow and onto the floor. We cornered the evil bastard in a corner and were going in for the kill with a wad of toilet paper (ok ok it was nearly a whole roll) when my mother came to investigate the racket. Imagine my suprise when my mother saw the large bug and informed me that it was a scorpion. With its tail curled. Which had been literally an inch from my head. Did I mention his tail was curled and in strike position??? **Shuddering all over again now**
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[BusyDad] I have never seen a scorpion outside of a pet store and they are scary (and badass) creatures. I don't even think a plush stuffed scorpion would be cute on a pillow.
I'm buying it today. :D
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[BusyDad] You ROCK, Maria
Oh wait - you're GIVING one away? Hmmm...
My creepy crawly experience was when I was about 10, I heard something buzzing around in my curtains. I thought it was a wasp, and I ignored it. I turn the light off and I'm almost asleep and I hear 'bbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz plop!'
And something lands right on my cheek. I swat it off and jump out of the bed all crazy like, flick the light on and there's a waterbug about the size of France sitting on my pillow just looking up at me like "what? I'm tired too!"
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[BusyDad] You STILL rock, Maria. So, did you feel bad and make him a matchbox bed? You know in China they eat waterbeetles? I spared you all that shot on my video...
So guess what? We finally have a Lego STORE *insert choir here* and it's only THREE miles from my apartment. Who do you think is more excited about the store? Me or my son?
I REALLY need to get that book for my boy, he is so freaked out about bugs right now and I need something to teach him what he should and shouldn't be afraid of.
As far as a creepie crawly tale...
scorpions.
Need I say more?
Okay, okay. I'll rehash the story about my first run in with AZ Scorpions.
Two weeks before my son was born I found a baby scorpion on the carpet. And then I found more.
And then when he was born we found even more and my new mom brain went into overload. Late one night, while my husband was at Wal-notfinishingthename, as I was walking my newborn around the apartment, I looked up at the wall above the TV and saw big ole mama scorpion. I froze and called hubby. I could not budge from that spot, I wanted to keep an eyeball on that ugly beast but was too afraid to get close enough to smash it. My husband laughed at my paranoia until he got home and saw how big that SOB was. Have you ever tried to smash a scorpion? Not an easy feat and that monster CLICKED when she fell and started to scurry. My husband did eventually turn her into crunchy scorpion pancake, but that was enough for me.
So we moved out. The end.
(Seriously though, I HATE scorpions and I could go on and on about the critters I've seen here including Rattlesnakes and Gila Monsters.)
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[BusyDad] AZ has some scary critters indeed... but I have to say, "crunchy scorpion pancake" kinda made me hungry. But that's just me...
Creepy crawlies?? MiniMe loves them. LOVES them. Just over the July 4th weekend alone I retrieved three of my best mixing bowls (the new ones, of course) from a nice sunny spot in the yard. Where they were hosting potato bugs, snails and frogs in a little resort community of their own. I'm sorry, but no amount of sterilization will make it okay to make ANYTHING edible in those bowls ever again.
We totally need this book in Schaererville.
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[BusyDad] I bet MiniMe is the only kid on the block now with Williams-Sonoma critter homes. Classy!
One year when we were putting the dock into the lake for the season, a portion of the pipe(?) under the boards came apart and out of it oozed hundreds and hundreds of tiny spiders! The funny (or not) part of the story is that my sister was sitting on that portion of the dock when it came apart and she is monstrously freaked out by spiders. My girls (about 8 & 4 at the time) didn't understand why their auntie was running around screaming and running into the water (to wash off the spiders) when they thought the "spider ooze" was so cool. Unfortunately now they are older and scream also when they run across a spider.
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[BusyDad] Spider ooze. I like it. It would make an excellent movie title. To me tiny spiders are scarier than big ones because the are so fluid. Fluid gets INTO stuff.
I have a story. When I was a kid,mind you I grew up in the country, my dad brought home a bunch of bullfrogs. Well I crawled after one that went under our house. Unknown to me, there were those big black and yellow bumble bees under there. I was young so I didn't care. Well my big brother thought he would rescue me and he crawled under and got me. Well he got stung all over face and his ears swelled up. Me? Not a sting. Don't worry, my brother slammed my hand in the door not too long after that. All that because of a frog. LOL
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[BusyDad] Poor frog. He had to carry that guilt for the rest of his life.
Have you seen the newest Lego catalog? On the back cover (that's the only part I've seen, I swear!) there's a picture of the new vw beetle they have out. I was a little shocked to see the price tag, let's just say you'd have to be a hardcore lego fan...
My buggy story isn't that bad, but I'm a girl and I h.a.t.e. spiders. We live in the desert where there are black widows and stuff, so call me a little paranoid. We were getting ready to move out of our old house when Hunter was about 6 months old, and we had stopped our pest control as soon as we knew we were moving, (it was cool, tubes in the walls, they shoot the stuff in, worked great!) Anyway, one night a few days before we actually got out of the house we were watching t.v. and I saw something run across the floor, really quick, and it looked huge, and I flipped out. Hunter was already asleep, and actually I think I was the only one awake. I was so freaked I put a towel at the bottom of his door so that whatever it was couldn't get in his room. Then I got my husband's shoe (he's a really heavy sleeper, or I would have gotten him). It turns out it was a humongous brown hairy spider! The size of my palm I think. I got him with the shoe. I was so grossed out! And he wasn't the last one I saw before we got out of that house. Somebody told me they're called wolf spiders. I don't really care. Thank GOD for pest control!
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[BusyDad] Do not tell Kimmylyn of JoggingInCircles.com about this. She won't go into her basement because she found a wolf spider in there once. She posted about it. Actually, go tell her, it'll be fun!
Oh - and yeah, I have that catalog and saw the VW Bug. Insane. I'd have to take a week off to build that for my kid!
Creepy crawlies. Ugh. Anything with more than 6 legs is terrifying to me, but I think I'll save the time I was bitten by a tarantula for another day. My tale is about the day I found out that I was allergic to bee stings.
There I was, on the grass knoll of our apartment's play area, working on my one handed cartwheels and walk-overs. There were bees. They didn't bug me and I usually didn't bug them, but this one time...My foot landed in my first perfectly executed cartwheel of my sixth summer. On a bee. Which stung me, which in hindsight is fair, since I had, like, killed him.
Within a half hour, I was throwing up food I'd eating three weeks earlier, my foot resembled some sort of a cave man tool and I had a 104 degree fever. I got to ride in my first ambulance that day and get a shot - forever instilling a new fear: needles.
A week later? I was doing flips in a different spot of that same knoll. And it happened again. On the same foot and everything.
A few weeks after that? Climbing into the tiny tot sized treehouse on the playground, a bee was flying around me and I was FROZEN and couldn't come out. I started crying and screaming bloody murder enough so that my dad had to come and take me out of the treehouse.
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[BusyDad] Wow, funny-because-you-lived-to-tell-about-it story! I guess the whole lightning never strikes twice theory doesn't apply to one-handed cartwheelers. I wonder since you didn't premeditate it, was that death considered beeslaughter?
YOu know how everyone always says that you swallow bugs in your sleep? Well, it's true. Really. I was once awaken from a deep, peaceful sleep because I had a tickle in my throat. A tickle that fluttered, and wiggled, and well...you get the idea. I was still half asleep mind you, so I was going on pure instinct baby...I swallowed. Oh. The. Horror.
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[BusyDad] Err... ew. HAck! I had to clear my throat just reading that.
Great giveaway!
Speaking of yellowjackets, I've been stung twice in my life by those damn things.
First, when I was on one of my earlier dates with the hubs; we were going canoeing so I had on these short shorts (ya know how it is ...), climbed into his car, and sat down on the hot seat... which promptly began to pinch and make my inner thigh/butt cheek get even hotter. I looked down and saw this stinger right where it hurts. My guy's uncle was a hobby beekeeper and he had been visiting, and brought back souvenirs.
Second time, I was taking the girlie and her brother to Canada's wonderland in my van; it was the hottest day of the year, and they were starving so I stopped at the closest McD's on the way. Kids were whining, I opened up my van door, unbuckled the baby from her carseat and as I was holding her got this sharp sting/ pinch on my inner arm below the armpit. Couldn't drop the girl of course... but that's the day my boy, 6 at the time, learned a few choice words starting with F and S... used in succession. Nothing like waiting in line at McD's with hungry kids, thinking you're gonna faint while the boy asks why your arm is starting to look like a log...
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[BusyDad] That is why I never wear short shorts. I don't care how sexy I look in them. ;)
You've heard of Huntsman spiders, right? They're HUGE (but scared of people, I'm told). I was in a 'pit toilet' in Australia, at a park in the rain forest. Drawers dropped, I look up into the corner and see one looking down on me. It was the size of my hand if he spread his legs out, but I didn't take the time to compare. I would have peed my pants if I wasn't where I was. I screamed and pulled up my pants and when I looked back it was gone.
That is the fastest exit from a bathroom I've ever made! And Pit Toilets were thoroughly inspected from there on out before I sat down. Eeps!
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[BusyDad] That has to be the worst spot to come face to face with a scary creature. Talk about a captive audience! Kind of like in Jurassic Park when that guy got eaten by T-Rex while he was in the outhouse.
Creepy crawly? How about creepy slithery? When I was a kid, I recall returning home from a vacation or something and my brothers and I rushing downstairs to play our Atari. (Yes, I said Atari. Please refrain from old folk jokes.) Anyhow, the Atari was set up in the family room downstairs on the TV right next to the sliding glass door. One of my brothers said "Hey, look at the snake." My other brother and I saw it outside the sliding door... Kind of watching us. "Hmmm." Creepy but okay. Then my first brother clarified... "No, THAT one" and pointed at the one on the inside of the sliding glass door.
Don't remember enough about it to know if it was dangerous and I don't dare ask my parents now for fear of being post-post-post-tramautized!
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[BusyDad] It would have been cool if you were playing Pitfall (my favorite Atari game!). The snakes would have totally enhanced the experience.
My wife and I met (and later married) at a rustic summer camp on a lake. I could tell you stories about
Spiders - I slept with a massive wolf spider over my sleeping bag for the first ten days I was on staff - and I still worked there for five more summers!
Snakes - Accidently stepped on the tail of one and was lucky to get a shoe in the way as it tried to bite me back!
Bear - We camped on an "island" when we did river trips. Our campers stayed on one side and the other was rented out by random folks. On the way into the site one night after getting water we were on the other side and almost hit a bear. Yeah, we never told the campers. No need to freak them all out.
Racoon - My cousin woke up one night to a one eyed racoon licking his big toe. I didn't believe him until I caught the thing a week later! Sure enough, there was a one-eyed racoon in our forest.
Bees - Same experience as you, BusyDad, but mine was a soda can, not a sandwich.
I can't wait to take my daughter camping!! I'm sure it will not be dull.
(no need to enter me in the contest, I'm buying this book today!)
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[BusyDad] I can't believe that you also have a stung tongue on your resume. I really thought I was the only one! Reading about the one-eyed raccoon reminded me of the Fugitive. Judging from the run-ins you've had, you'll enjoy the book!
I am so not reading those comments. You know how it is in our neck of the woods. Roaches for DAYS. I had to battle out with three of them one day when I walked in the bathroom. The outcome was NOT pretty.
I think I'll buy that book. I think SBJ would TOTALLY dig it. As much as I would love one with Jeff's kick ass drawing...
Whoo, Fury's back in action!
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[BusyDad] There's not much in this world that scares me, but roach guts are on the list. I don't know if it's a myth, but they say when you squish one, you expose the eggs, which hatch into more. Ew to the ew.
Very cool. When I was 16, I was surfing in Huntington Beach on a warm October day. Upon coming to shore I stepped right on top of a sting ray. The barb went straight into the heal of my foot with excrutiating pain. As you can imagine, I bled profusely. Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone around. No lifeguards on duty or beach goers nearby. I basically had to crawl across the sand, dragging my surfboard, to my car and drive myself to the emergency room. I ended up having surgery to remove pieces of the barb from inside my foot. It was very painful. Lesson learned...shuffle your damned feet kid.
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[BusyDad] Yikes man! That is a straight up one of survival tales they re-enact on A&E.
I was five years old and sucking on a Lifesaver in my backyard, apparently with my mouth hanging open. A bee flew into into my mouth and just kinda hung out for awhile. My big brother was freaking out; you know, to help keep me calm. I sweated and drooled with my mouth open as wide as I could get it for what must have been the longest four or five seconds of my brief life. And then the bee flew away. The end.
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[BusyDad] Man, you are one lucky bastard! I applaud your ability at FIVE to stay calm with a bee in your mouth. I don't think I could do that at 35.
I have so many stories! Just a couple of weeks ago we went camping and had a run-in with a snake and a mole (the mole was WAY creepier than the snake), and a few weeks before that we ran into a rabid (or just plain crazy) raccoon on a hike. And, once when I was a kid and we were playing hide and seek, I hid behind a bush...right under a hornet's nest. I got stung five times.
But, my most embarrassing creepy-crawly experience was in Florida when I was 12 years old. We were at a little shop and I went to the dressing room to try on a skirt. I came out to show my Mom what it looked like and when I looked down, there was a lizard on the skirt staring up at me! I yanked the skirt off (thank goodness for elastic waists!), threw it across the store and stood there in my underwear for a split second before realizing what I had done. Nice.
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[BusyDad] Hahaha! Poor guy. He was just trying to save you money on your car insurance.
Oh man, what a great book!
I remember this one time, when Michael and I lived in New Orleans, I was getting ready for work. Michael was shaving and I was peeing. One bathroom. Gotta do what you gotta do. Anyway.... I went to open the shower curtain and at me lept THE BIGGEST, THE UGLIEST, THE MOST DISGUSTING COCKROACH IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. I seriously jumped into the air and ran down the hallway, to the bedroom, naked as naked can be!
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[BusyDad] Cockroaches give me the heebie jeebies. The other day at the office, one crawled right across my keyboard. Luckily no one was there with me because my reaction was not befitting to my tough exterior to put it nicely.
Apparently I want to go home all wigged out by bug stories because I keep checking back here to see if any more stories have been posted. Sheesh, get a life, Nat.
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[BusyDad] I see nothing wrong with that you're doing!
Legos, books, the main thing is that precious pre-bed time. C (at age 15) still loves it with his dad.
Fabulous book by Jeff!
My recent crawly/stingy experience was we noticed this absolutely amazing web on our balcony. It was HUGE - like 7 feet across. It was also right next to our balcony table. A couple of days later, it was gorgeous out, so I took my breakfast toast outside and planned to eat at the table. As I started to sit down, this ginormous spider with red-banded legs and a huge beehive butt dropped down about an inch from my nose. I ran inside and tried to identify it, and the only thing I could find were other types of the "widow" family. Scary...
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[BusyDad] That's really cool about C! It's nice to know that the "too cool to hang with dad" syndrome doesn't affect all kids. And your story sounds familiar - thanks to google, Fury and I make much better "should we kill it?" decisions.
I'm gonna tell ya the story of how we got our pet Frankie. I mentioned him briefly in a post last week (http://worldofweasels.blogspot.com/2008/06/we-should-install-revolving-door.html) and was going to post the whole story eventually. But now I will do it here and post it too.
Anyway, when Eldest(14) was 2 she would freak out Jurassic Park Style every time she saw a fly, inside or out. You would think it was a flying raptor. She would scream, cry and come just short of having a panic attack. This went over very well in public as people would stop and ask if she was alright, thinking the child had been attacked by an ax murderer. There was no amount comfort that would settle her until it flew far, far away.
One day in the kitchen while doing whatever it is I do in the kitchen, Eldest came to help me. She spotted a fly and stared the earthquake in my ears. When from nowhere the words "That's Frankie, he's your new pet" flowed from my lips.
She stopped crying immediately and said "really, he's my pet?" It worked!!!!! And so 12 years and 5 children later, we still have our pet Frankie. I think it took her about another 4 years to figure it out.
He's not your ordinary pet. He comes and goes as he pleases like a farm cat. He 'hibernates' in the winter. Sometimes he brings friends and family to visit. He's not allowed to eat our food. He can go seek his own. And no one is ever allowed to swat a fly in our house when the little ones are around for fear of total melt dowm.
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[BusyDad] What a hilarious story!! Amazing how properly framing something makes such a difference. But I have to request that you keep Frankie on a leash. He likes to make himself at home at my house a bit too often.
I linked you up in the post.
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[BusyDad] Thanks WeaselMomma! That story was too good to hide in my comments.
I have a slightly different twist on the creepy-crawly genre.
We had some heavy rain about a month ago, and worms were everywhere. I was in our basement playroom doing a little vacuuming, when a worm oooooooozed out of the window air conditioning unit and slowly dropped to the floor. It was fascinating and disgusting all at once. A week later, I was hosting a playdate, and a very precocious four-year-old asked me if there are any bugs in the playroom, since it's a basement. If so, he wanted to see them (he claimed), because he "loves" bugs. I proceeded to tell him the story about the worm, whereupon he freaked out, screamed like a little girl and ran to his mother shouting, "Worms are not bugs!! Worms are not bugs!! Worms are not bugs!!" Who knew?
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[BusyDad] You learn something new everyday. Sometimes quite adamantly :)
As a kid, I went pumpkin picking to a farm. I was messing around with a scarecrow when I knocked it off the pole and it fell on top of me. It turns out that there was a newly hatched spider nest inside the scarecrow. They didn't bite me but got all over, and traumatized me to the point where I can't even LOOK at a frigging scarecrow without hyperventilating, even thirty years later.
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[BusyDad] That story gave me the icky shivers. That's worse than when scarecrows come alive and have glowing monster eyes. At least you can kick those.
Oh, I can so see this as being a weekly installment! Story Time with BD and Fury!
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[BusyDad] Hmmm a lot easier to do than W8Loss Wednesday, that's for sure. Great idea!
great plug! Now we have to get it on Oprah...btw I'm watching this while star wars is in the background hahah.
I already have one of these fantastic books, but I'll throw in a comment.For my bug tales, where do I begin??! I'm a creepy critter magnet! :P From my week long stint at children's hospital to those stupid centipedes and fire ants in tropical ghetto, bad buggies are the only living beings I don't have any compassion for. Go fig, I should try to eat them. Of course, I should consult jeff's book first before I do so. Go jeff!!
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[d Bro] Your ability to swell up from any contact with bugs has always amazed me. Maybe you should retire from vegetarianism just out of spite.
That looks like a pretty cool book! Its great when a friend is able to pull something off like getting a book published...really cool.
So how about this one? When I was growing up in St. Louis, I used to ride motorcycles. It was a hot summer day, so on my way in to work, I had the visor on my helmet open. Lo and behold, in flies a wasp. It lodged its body right between the padding of my helmet and my left temple. For those of you who don't know, wasps don't lose their stingers after stinging once like bees do. They just keep goin and goin. Because I was on the road, I had to force myself to calmly pull to the side of the road while the wasp went nuts on my temple. IT was like one of those slow motion scenes in movies where they guy goes "NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo!"
Needless to say, when I arrived at work I had a second head. Got cold chills a little bit too.
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[BusyDad] Ouch ouch ouch MF'ing OUCH!!!
My creepy crawly experience.
I was in Aruba playing with a then-infant Princess on a mat on the floor. A SCORPION!!!!!! crawls up my arm, down my back and scurries under the nearby coach. I was FREAKING OUT. My neighbor came over, killed it, and gave me an education about local scorpions. Apparently, this nickel-sized little monster was the most poisonous on the island. Good times.
I have the heebie jeebies just writing about it...eeew.
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[BusyDad] Man... that is crazy. From these stories, it sounds as if scorpions really haven't developed a healthy fear of people.
Why I still store my glassware upside-down: when I was eight, I got myself a plastic cup from the cupboard and poured myself some milk. I took a few drinks from it, and noted a funny taste.
Wondering what the heck could be wrong, I peeked into the cup.
There, floating in the center of the milk was a very large brown spider, furiously paddling to reach the side.
I don't remember how much I threw up, only that after that I checked my cups every time before pouring anything in to them. Still do.
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[BusyDad] I bet the poor spider remembers that close call as well. Talk about nowhere to run!
Wow, thanks to Jim for such an awesome review, and lovin everyone’s hilarious stories!
Just thought I’d throw in a creepy crawly story of my own.
Back in college, I noticed that at one of the cafeterias, the milk station had smelled kind of funny for a few months. Not spoiled, but not quite right either. Anyway one day I was at physiology lab before dinner, and we capped off the lab with a cherry on top. A horribly disgusting metaphorical cherry. What I’m talking about is we dissected LIVE hissing cockroaches to get a glimpse at their malpighian tubules (cockroach kidneys). Apparently you can only see the writhing organs while the roaches are alive, and I remember that huge vocab word (malpighian tubules) on account of how gross it was. Once I dug in with the scalpel and saw the good stuff, I noticed an unmistakable smell. Cafeteria milk station? Bingo. Needless to say, I deprived myself of calcium for a few months, but on the bright side, I felt like such an awesome detective! Mystery smell solved.
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[BusyDad] I never liked milk from school. Those crates always disgusted me. I guess I have good instincts. As good as that story was, I'm afraid I'm going to have do disqualify you from winning your own book. Sorry, I'm strict like that.
When my daughter was about 6 we went for a hike at a local park. It had rained the night before so it was very humid and all the little bity things were out. After a few minutes of slapping our arms and legs to stop the biting, she says: "We should have used some bug spray so we wouldn't be bugs' prey." Say it real fast and it sounds funnier.
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[BusyDad] Hey, that is grade A quality wit for a 6 year old! Awesome.
I love Fury's comments throughout your readings. What a fabulous book! I have two nephews and a daughter that will love this! I see Christmas presents in my future. Thanks for the heads up, unless of course I win one and then my hubby will Thank you for not costing him more money :-)
Let's see: I once caught a ball that had a bee on it and it stung me under my thumb nail, it swelled up, hurt like hell and I screamed bloody murder.
Princess likes creepy crawly things. She'll sit for a good 30 minutes watching spiders and Monkey has a thing for roaches. Down here in South Texas we have huge Roaches. He loves them. He used to try to eat them. Ugh.
Now, enter me! :-)
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[BusyDad] Ow, I think even the Geneva Convention bans sticking things under fingernails! I'd eat a roach before sticking something under my nail.
Don't flail your arms, run,....stay calm? It's amazing I've lasted this long without being attacked.
Perfume..."That's girly" LOL! You must be so proud :)
Sounds like a great book! I've already learned so much.
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[BusyDad] Maybe the bees didn't like your perfume? :D
I was in Hawaii recently and I found this lucky tiki that I carried around everywhere, It saved me on several occasion, like when I was surfing, and when I got lost in a cave, and also when this tarantula came into my room and started to crawl on me when I was sleeping. Very creepy...wait a minute, wait a minute, I guess that was just a Brady Bunch episode I watched. Sorry!
Cool sounding book, though.
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[BusyDad] Don't forget that the picture frame almost fell on you! Brady Bunch so ruled my world for too many years.
Besides that my nickname is Bug Bite Girl (if there is a bug within a 10 mile radius it will bite me) my worst experience was when I was backpacking through Siberia. We found a cabin to spend the night in and had all huddled up next to each other on the floor. As I was about to drift off to sleep I heard lots of skittering and squeaking. Scared to death I flicked on my flashlight only to come face to face with 20-30 mice. RIGHT.IN. FRONT.OF.MY.FACE!!! I screamed bloody murder and started stomping my feet (yeah not too smart) I spent the rest of the night with my sleeping bag zipped around my head. shudder....
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[BusyDad] You and my sister share the exact same trait. She's great at BBQs. Distracts the bugs away from everyone else. And all I can say about Siberia is... at least it was too cold for bugs?
It didn't crawl, but my 4 year old had a toenail stuck in her teeth tonight? That's creepy!
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[BusyDad] Of course that begs the question - how did that get there??? Or am I better off just not knowing...
Hey! haha on the bbq comment!
One more buggy story. Although referenced in your gastronomic adventures section, it's appropriate to mention here too - you're the one who ate my dried catepillars.
Me: gasp!! eeew!
Jim: hmmm, *crunch* kinda tastes like soybeans... *crunch crunch* hmm. Not bad.
As for your bee sting story, no sympathy! You had to eat ice cream and popsicles for the next two days!
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[d Bro] Oh yeah - did you know I STILL have that bag of caterpillars? (for everyone else's benefit, those are a common movie snack in Botswana, where she just got back from studying a semester).
I hear my 3 year old SCREAMING "MOMMMMMMMM!!!!!! HELP!!!!!"
I run over and he says "An ant..on my tongue!!"
I open his mouth and sure enough there is a big-ass ant holding on for dear life.
I pull it off and tell my son "Matty, we don't eat ants."
Matty: "Why not?"
Mommy: "Because they can sting you."
Matty: "But none of the other ones stung me."
A true boy. I wonder how many he ate that day.
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[BusyDad] Watch for biceps. Those ants pack a lot of protein! That is an awesome story!!
When I was...10...okay, really I have no clue how old I was...between 8-10. Anyhoo, my dad took us on a little camping trip. They let my brother and I out of the truck, and he and I went off to explore. We found a smushed snake in the middle of the road and being the good children we were, we ran and got daddy to show him our cool find. He inspected it and confirmed it's deadness and gave us the go ahead to bring it back to the picnic table. So, I laid the snake out, inspecting it. Slightly smushed head (okay pretty smushed), and what's that? A rattler? Hmm cool. The snake didn't move at all so I decided to play with it - I'd roll it up and unroll it and so on. Occasionally it'd jerk a little and I'd jump and they'd all tell me it was just something snakes did sometimes after they were dead. At some point, I had to get up to go pee. I came back and my snake was gone. It was actually several feet away...moving. Slithering. Yep. I played with a not-so-dead rattlesnake with a slightly smushed head - And my father endorsed it (for a while, anyways).
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[BusyDad] As scary as it was, I have to say it's pretty funny that your dad misdiagnosed a squashed rattlesnake. If Fury ever finds a dead rattler, I know now to cut off the head first.
I went to camp every summer I can remember and the camp was on a lake, of course. The lake flowed into a shallowish quagmire that they called "a river" and the counsellors thought it was the coolest thing to take us on "Bog Walks" basically a hike through the river. When I say shallowish I mean in places up to your knees and in others you were on tip-toes to keep your head out and believe me you wanted to keep your head out.
The quagmire was thick with all kinds of ick, sticks, and glick. All manner of creepies and crawlies swimming around you and buzzing above you. I had done this many times cause when you're a 12 yr old boy what's better than ick and glick? One day a lazy-ass counsellor decided he didn't feel like getting wet but we could take canoes instead. So while we paddled and navigated he sun tanned in the back, of an aluminum canoe (I bet he's paying for that one today). As we reach a particularly quaggy section of the river we see something unusual floating off to the side. Something that looked like a buoy, a furry buoy. The other canoe that was with us paddles up closer to investigate and calls back a report, "It's a beaver!". A dead, bloated, beaver looking like a buoy bobbing up and down in the bog. " What should I do?" he calls again. Some kid calls out "Hit it with your paddle!" This wakes up the counsellor so abruptly he nearly tips us over, "STOP! don't touch it! It might explode!" He didn't touch it, and it didn't explode, bummer.
Needless to say my "Bog Walking"days were over.
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[BusyDad] Man! An exploding beaver story would have been a great tale to tell the grandkids. I had no idea a bloated animal could explode. I'm totally keeping an eye out for bloated floating animals if I ever go camping.
hmmm...I'll have to think about that one cause I want that book...AND the cartoon drawing...
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[BusyDad] Both worthwhile. BD guaranteed.
When I was in my early 20s, I spent 10 days camping and hiking in Scotland with my then-boyfriend. We had "wellies" (those knee-high rubber boots the British use for stomping about in damp places) that we used for much of our exploring, since we were crossing damp moor land, covered with ferns, heather, and so on. (Side note: my hair has never been lovelier nor my skin more dewy and lovelier than on that trip.) Anyhoo, we used to leave the damp and muddy wellies outside the tent at night, so as not to mud up the sleeping bags. One morning, I put mine on, and they felt a bit odd, but I didn't really think anything of it. I walked around for a few hours before I finally couldn't stand the wadded-up-sock under my instep feeling anymore and pulled off the wellie. Sock was just fine. Confused, I reached into the boot, and pulled out a FOUR INCH LONG, incredibly fat, very slimy, slick, black, and mercifully now dead SLUG. So charming. That night, we had fresh farm eggs cooked on our camping burner and luscious strawberries for dinner, and the world was all right again. But I'll never really forget the long trails of slime. Oh, the slime...
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[BusyDad] so so so so SO SO gross. I hate slug slime. I can stomach most things on TV, but when they show animals eating slugs, I draw the line.
Dude, where do I start?
I our old house before we moved in October there was a snake found under my computer desk. I so didn't want to even touch the computer after that. Of course Mr. Smoochiefrog deciding that he needed to save it and put it in a Tupperware container so I could see it didn't help. "Look what I found where you put your feet dear." ACK!
In that same house, I was watching TV in the dark while in bed one night. I saw this thing scurry across the floor. It was quite large, but was gone by the time I got the light on to see it. I left the light on, and saw it again about 20 minutes later as it scurried toward the TV. I was a freaking harry-ass spider that was a big as my hand! It made it's way behind my dresser where I finally corraled it into an empty bar of soap box. It filled the entire thing! I closed it in there, took it outside and had my eldest stomp it to death. Mr. Smoochiefrog was out of town when this happened, but he would have been totally useless. We're talking standing on the bed screaming like a bitch useless. He's more afraid of spiders than anyone I know.
So, do I win? :)
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[BusyDad] You win the "Death Most Resembling the Trash Compacter Scene in Star Wars" award. The book? We'll have to let fate decide that one! May the Force be with you, Smoochie.
Okay, obviously had to check out this post after reading the subsequent one. What an awesome idea. My little one (who is 3) just had her latest creepy-crawly experience this morning. She is ALL GIRL, that kid, scared of every bug who comes near her. In the backyard today I heard her begin to scream and cry for me as she stood completely paralyzed by a flying insect so small I couldn't see it, but surely huge in her imagination as it buzzed ever closer to her arm. She probably learned this from me, as I react in EXACTLY the same way even now. I hate bugs. Moving to the South may have been a huge mistake.
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[BusyDad] Well you have to remember, relative to a 3 year old, a .035 inch long bug is the equivalent of a .047 inch long bug to us. Poor girl!!
When I was 10, we moved from MD to Georgia. I was sitting in the kitchen of the new house and a small scorpion crawled onto the table. I thought it was a cricket, so I picked it up to throw outside. Wow! That 'cricket' got pissed! I threw it down and smashed it. My mom came in the room and I told her that she better watch out - Georgia had biting crickets!
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[BusyDad] hahha!! too funny. Sad you got punished for a good deed. Most kids would have just smashed the "cricket."
Cute, awesome book and I totally want one!! I can't narrow it down to one creepy crawler experience because there are so dang many. I am terrified of all things bug. So much that my husband bought me a Bug Vacuum for Christmas to use while he's travelling. Great in theory, but one night there was a cockroach in the girls' bathroom and I stood looking at it, terrified, screamed for one daughter to bring me the vacuum and for another to run and get the neighbor's husband to use it!
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[BusyDad] Fury would be able to make some good pocket money providing Bug Vacuuming services for you.
I've been stung several times (a couple on tennis courts) but one was similar to your experience. I was sipping some sort of beverage out of a straw (which was in a can (?)) at a park with the kids and didn't realize the bee was in the straw...OUCH! It was truly bizarre.
But I'll never forget the first time I was stung. I was on a beach in Greece. I traveled quite a bit on my own when I was in my 20s and usually made a point of knowing enough of the language of the country to meet basic needs. But Greece was a bit of an exception to that rule. Anyway, I was lying there (alone) feeling very content and a bit sleepy, when I sensed something around my leg and shooed it away. The next moment I sat up yelping b/c of a sharp, stinging pain in my leg. I frantically looked around, hoping someone would help. For all I knew I was about to die. Had no idea whether I was allergic. Just knew it hurt like nothing I'd felt. Some Italian tourists behind me took pity on me and got me some ice. They explained in Italian (which I could understand a little) that I would be okay.
It's hard to be all alone in a foreign land when something like that happens.
Since then? I don't swat at bees anymore...
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[BusyDad] You can skip the bee chapter then, SoapyB, you are well learned! I really really thought I was the only person ever to be stung in the tongue. I think there were a couple more just on these comments alone. Not feeling so special anymore...
You rock! I like how your son is still holding a lego piece, so it is never far from his mind, even though he traded it in for something else this night.
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[BusyDad] Thank you :) Yup. He ALWAYS goes back to Legos. It's hard-wired.