Two weeks ago, I quick picked my jeans up off the floor in my bedroom and pulled them on before a phone call with my boss (ah, the joys of working virtually). While I was talking with her, I kept scratching absently at my knee, but the itchy feeling quickly turned into pain. Finally, while still talking on the phone, I pulled up my pants leg and inspected my knee. There I found some kind of beetley bug, significantly squashed, and with one end still embedded in my leg. Whatever it was had been hanging out in my pants while they were on the floor (yes Mom, yet another reason my jeans should never have been on the floor in the first place), and had clearly been distressed to find my knee in its new home. It must have been walking around scoping out the new territory when I started scratching/squashing it, and then it started either stabbing or biting me (it was so squished I couldn't really discern which end was stuck in my leg).
After flinging the insect onto the floor in a primal response, I realized I should probably inspect the bug to see if it was anything potentially truly dangerous, since poisonous things do live in Colorado. I searched for the darn thing for fifteen minutes on my multi-colored carpet, and after finding it was only able to determine that it wasn't a spider because I could identify at least one wing. I finally just decided that if strange swelling occurred I would go to the doctor.
Two weeks later, the five bites/stings have finally stopped itching. They turned a purple color and there was a big bruise on my knee, but that could have been because I got hit with a ball by the ball machine (when you're a klutz identifying the sources of bruises becomes pretty complicated). Anyway, I'm pretty sure that whatever bug it was wasn't poisonous, because I'm still kicking, but it definitely was a disturbing experience. I've been much more careful with my clothes since then: I now put them in a heaping clothes basket rather than directly on the floor.
But the experience did leave other lasting impressions. I have now started shaking out my pants before putting them on, and tipping my slippers upside down before inserting my feet. I've been doing this kind of half-heartedly, in a "this seems like a good idea" kind of way, but this last weekend made me a firm believer. Joe and I were heading out for a hike for the first time in awhile, and my hiking boots had been sitting downstairs for a couple of months. True to my new regimen, I shook my boots, and luckily I had the presence of mind to do it outside on our porch, because flying out of the second boot came a big, dry, crusty spider. It was long since dead and curled, but there was no question that a big brown crunchy spider had at one point been making my left boot its home. I was so disgusted that I took a paper towel and stuck it down in my boot to make sure there wasn't anything else in there, and even though it came out clean, I still wasn't sure I wanted to put my foot in the boot. I finally did, however, and nothing terrible happened. The boots still worked, and after five hours of hiking I finally forgot about it and stopped curling my toes in fear of touching the end of my boot.
Joe has told stories in the past of camping with people who have spent time in the desert, who, out of habit, even if they are far from the desert, don't unroll their sleeping bags until the last minute, and always shake out their boots before putting them on in case of snakes. Well, count me in. Two unwanted visitors in a week have taught me that (A) my house is not as secure as one would hope, and (B) if I would properly put away my belongings this may be much less likely to happen. But old habits die hard, and the easiest way to adapt to my surroundings is to become a shaker. Snakes, spiders and insects, beware. (But mostly, please go away.)
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