Hop away

After I pulled into my driveway, I swung my car door open wide. It almost hit our big butterfly bush.

By pure happenstance, I happened to notice a thing that had spent its whole life trying not to be noticed — a grasshopper happily munching away on the shrub (instead of "on the shrub" I had originally written "on my bush" but decided that sounded dirty. So instead of just moving on, I'm using this parenthetical note to point out that I'm a dirty thinker — which now seems to sad and kinda desperate.).
I pulled out my camera and tried to snap a few macro shots before it got indigestion and hopped away.

While I was trying to get the camera to focus on the tiny insect in the bright daylight using a digital screen that I couldn't see, I started wondering what was going through that little grasshopper's head.

When I first noticed him, he was eating. The longer I stood there and the closer the camera got, the slower he chewed until he stopped and focused his full attention on the camera.

Then I was done and I walked away.

Did he just go back to his lunch? Or did he start worrying about what that thing was and what it could have possibly done to him?

Does he now fear that I've irradiated his little grasshopper body causing malignant tumors to start growing on his exoskeleton?

Does he think he had a close encounter with an unidentified metal box?

Does he think that a big, square bird tried to eat him until the giant, blond thing jammed it back into her purse?

I hope I didn't irritate his acid reflux.

Cockroach induced screaming

From the "It's a small world" files, I got this e-mail from a friend about the video I posted yesterday of the weatherman freaking out over the cockroach on his foot:

I worked with that company during that freak out. The weatherman was with SNN, and I worked for the same company. Management freaked out when it started circling. The guy apparently got a ton of offers, including Leno, but they told him they would fire him if he accepted. The guy who leaked the footage totally got fired.

So to the dude who got fired, thanks. Thanks for sacrificing your job so we could laugh at that dude screaming like a girl over a bug. It was totally worth it ... for me.

And I would like to note that we have no bug-related incident at band practice last night and only one incident of Boom Boom, our dude drummer, shaking his head in disgust when we refused to listen to his lesson on music theory.

We're rockin' chicks, we don't need no stinkin' music theory.

Why crickets are evil AND why girl bands are awesome

Here in western Colorado we have bugs. Huge, black, blood-lusty crickets and giant, flat, stupid "water bugs" that are actually Oriental roaches. Oh and spiders — we've got spiders and lots of them.

Almost every week during band practice there is some sort of bug incident.

The most notable was a tragic event that occurred at the end of a practice a while ago. We were sitting around in our pink, feather-trimmed negligees breathing heavy and dabbing at our glistening decolletes after our obligatory pillow fight (What? You don't think that is what goes on during our band practices? Believe me you'd be surprised. Just ask our dude drummer, Boom Boom. Why do you think he agreed to drum for a bunch of girls?) when Laurena shrieked, threw her bass case across the room and started frantically swatting her head.

Somehow a huge, black, blood-lusty cricket had hopped in her mop and was trying to bore its way into her brain.

It was horrible (for her — hilarious for us).

Today she forwarded me this video, proving that we are not alone with our distaste for the creepy crawlies.


Funny Videos

That dude screams just like Laurena.