Close encounters of the OMGWTF kind

When I’m home, I tend to do all of my work sitting cross-legged on my bed, computer in lap and sheets bunched by the foot board. You see, I don’t have a desk and working anywhere else in my house leaves me open as a target for family members who can’t/refuse to accept that someone like me could have, say, deadlines.

So yes, I work on my bed. Like a teenager doing her homework. Or something. Whatever.

Yesterday, as I sat in position typing away furiously, I happened to catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked down and there, picking its way across my mattress, was a bug. A tiny bug, but a big nonetheless.

And that’s fine. Bugs, they happen.

I took a closer look and THIS, dear reader, is what I saw:

Guys, I lost my fucking mind.

WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT?

I had never seen bedbugs before so I had no idea if perhaps that was the stranger crawling his way toward me. I hadn’t had any reason to assume that this would have been an issue before that moment of course but it was a bug and it was IN my BED.

And then I noticed the pincers and I thought Jebus, it looks like an itty bitty crab…

HOLY FUCK AN ITTY BITTY CRAB.

CRABS??

Again, I had no idea what body crabs looked like and even though I KNEW without a doubt that this also wasn’t an issue (I’ve heard that you, y’know, tend to NOTICE that sort of thing). Also, why was it touring my mattress? Wouldn’t it have had more important places to be?

But forget rationality. It didn’t matter, there was a crazy-ass bug with goddamn pincers in my bed and I was FREAKING OUT.

All I was thinking was fuck my life, I just spent four nights in a hotel. Didn’t I read Somewhere that you can get bugs at hotels? IT’S AN INFESTATION OH GOD

It wasn’t an infestation. It was one bug. But again, all rationality was out the window.

I calmed myself enough to lure the wanderer onto a scrap of paper (not without difficulties mind you. Turns out he was a feisty little bastard, as made evident by the fact that he chose to SPAR WITH THE PAPER. Seriously, picture it – teeny little pincers versus colossal scrap of paper. He wasn’t going down without a fight).

I flew downstairs and called frantically for my family. Both Mom and Middle Brother instantly ruled out bedbugs and body crabs.

“That is not what bedbugs look like,” said Mom all matter-of-factly. She IS a mom after all, so I felt inclined to believe her.

“And it’s definitely not a body crab,” of this Middle Brother seemed awfully certain.

There were awkward glances exchanged in silence, followed by,

“NO, I’M NOT SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE.”

He thought it looked more like a scorpion anyway.

For that I punched him.

So we turned to friend Google where they first pulled up pictures of the aforementioned creepy crawlers to put my mind at ease:

A bedbug. The heebie jeebies: I has them

A crab louse. Picture me, projectile vomiting while conducting THIS image search. UHG.

Yes, thanks for that. Are you feeling itchy too? It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me where. You’re welcome though.

So what was it?

It only took Middle Brother a few moments to figure it out.

“Chelonethida,” he announced triumphantly as we huddled around the monitor where he had pulled up the Wikipedia article.

“Look, see!” said Mom. “They’re harmless! It even says they’re beneficial to humans because they eat other, grosser bugs! Do you feel better now?”

Yes, it was certainly reassuring to know that a) I didn’t have an infestation in my bed and, b) that I wasn’t going to die in my sleep, but it was hard to feel relieved with the word PSUDOSCORPION STARING YOU IN THE FACE.

“I knew it was a scorpion,” Middle Brother was feeling pretty proud of himself.

“Wannabe scorpion!” I shrieked as I ran back upstairs to gather my bedding. “Fake-out-scorpion, not-quite-there-scorpion, POSER!”

And into the wash it all went. I may not be in Texas getting attacked by real scorpions like some other bloggers we all know, but that doesn’t mean I’m down with poser scorpion slumber parties either. After all, I have standards