bugs.... am i just a *****? :P

Depending on their size and thickness, spiders, cockroaches, and house centipedes give me the minor willies. It's nothing I can't handle with a napkin, though. What really ***** me up are crickets and grasshoppers, with their chirping and erratic 3-dimensional jumping. Once when I was a small, barefooted child, I went out into the garage to play some table tennis. I slipped on some tennis shoes only to feel something lumpy on the insole. It was a large black cricket.

I don't generally kill spiders either. I try to scoop them out or doors unharmed. Those damn cochroaches I can't stand. There was one on the floor of my parents home once (actually MUCH more than once if truth be known); I sprayed it with insecticide then buried it in lots of toilet paper before flushing it down the toilet. I still threw up after the experience. I really don't know why they sicken me so. I will never live in North Carolina again!

Cockroaches are a ***** because they refuse to die.

I found one in my bathroom, so I got a paper towel and crushed the mofo between my fingers, real good. Then I wrapped him up in some more paper towels and put him in my garbage in the kitchen. I go sit down to watch some tv, and five minutes later I see movement out of the corner of my eye. The little ***** is crawling out of his garbagy tomb! He starts skittering across the floor, and I, in disbelief, get some paper towels, catch him, and crush him as hard as I can. I should mention this was a pretty large bugger. I then get a little cardboard box I had, stuff him in there, close the box, and put him in the garbage. I think that finally killed him.

But seriously, I hate those things. If you live in NYC, you understand.

Stayed in a dorm once on a summer program on the campus of a well-known boarding school... Late at night under the ping pong table we saw something move... it was a roach the size of a thumb -- two inches long. Utterly revolting. We used about half a can of bug spray on it, and even then it took half an hour to die, going into periodic convulsions. I hate roaches and centipedes -- the latter being fairly large as well as carnivorous and generally disgusting. I don't mind spiders if they stay out of my way. The RJ cat appeared to savor them, however. I suppose they were to him the way lobster is to us.

Yeah these things infest my parent's (finished) basement where I used to live:

It is amusing that cockroaches are universally despised - why? Is it some primal, instinctive hate against carriers of disease? Being a real outdoorsy type, I have no problems with most bugs and have actually eaten quite a few (a couple spiders - but they are kind of risky, mainly moths, cicadas, ants, and grasshoppers).

That said, I cannot STAND cockroaches.

I hate them with the radiance of a thousand suns. If they went extinct I would rejoice for weeks, max out my credit cards on suits, booze, and prophylatics, and probably join a religion that would have sprouted up solely to celebrate the glorious cockroach holocaust.
Being dive-bombed by a flying roach is one of the most infuriating and terrifying things I have ever encountered. They are disgusting and have a weird sort of malevolent intelligence and a stick-to-it-tiveness I would admire in any animal not so vile.
I grew up pretty poor in a roach-infested house. When I was laid off after 9-11, I was destitute and had to move back home and was just miserable for about nine months. One of the biggest contributors to my misery was waking up every morning and knowing that there would be at least two cockroaches waiting for me in the shower that I'd have to kill; I'd even bring a flip-flop with me to the shower. I hated life then and I HATE cockroaches then and now.
I fondly remember when my parents finally moved out of that house. During the cleaning out process, we would dump all the roach infested furniture out back on the patio and watch cockroaches scatter away from it. The lizards (Florida is also infested with lizards, cuban and brown anoles primarily) would scamper from the bushes and eat the smaller ones. My brothers and I would take care of the larger ones. I realize this scene sounds like something out of a Hiassen-styled Deliverance, but it was a beautiful thing. Man and reptile cooperating, not in the weird David Icke-type way, but for the betterment of all creatures.
Hatred of roaches and the concomitant desire to escape poverty are the primary reason behind my law degree, mba, etc...

So, as much as I would like to call you an incredibly large ****** for being afraid of bugs, I absolutely feel as you do about roaches. (as the length and intensity of this diatribe probably suggests)

Originally Posted by rxcats

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I can't stand cockroaches. They make me physically ill and is one of the main reasons I will NEVER live in the southeast ever again.
In South Carolina, they're known as "palmetto bugs" and are as big as your shoe. The cute name doesn't make them any less hateable, however.

A. GQGeek once again you prove that you are the biggest ***** this side of Jenna Jameson (she had to have hers reduced/tightened, I suggest you look into the procedure).
B. +1 on the not killing spiders due to their eating of bugs.
C. In NY at least, cockroaches seem to only be a NYC/apartment problem and I have not come across one in my house since we've been there now for 7-8 years or so.
D. Any bug that you do not like, you should be able and willing to kill by squishing it with your hand. Not that you have to do that, but you should be able to stomach it if the need arises. If you cannot, then realize that the line between you and a woman has become that much smaller.

I was reading in bed the other night after 5 hours in the photo lab, when I hear something scurry across the wall, it was a cockroach climbing on the side of the wall on the other side of my bed. I proceed to spin about and grab an empty cup on my night stand, and place it around the cockroach on the wall and started to tap the side of the glass cup, frightening the **** out of it.

I then let go of the glass cup and let it fall on the bed and placed the cup over it again. I then grabbed 3 napkins and slip them underneath and carried the bug downstairs. I was torn as to whether I should leave it outside on the grass or kill it; I decided to kill it.

So I went to laundry sink, which has an insinkerator, and placed the cockroach inside, ran the water at full blast and turned it on. If it was a spider I would have let it live, but cockroaches must die.

Jon.

Originally Posted by Ambulance Chaser

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In South Carolina, they're known as "palmetto bugs" and are as big as your shoe. The cute name doesn't make them any less hateable, however.

Where I grew up, "palmetto bug" referred to the stinky, less common, more beetle-like type of insect. "Cockroach" referred to the german or asian cockroach. Neither are cute and deserved to be crushed beneath the sole of a Kenneth Cole.

Originally Posted by edmorel

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A. GQGeek once again you prove that you are the biggest ***** this side of Jenna Jameson (she had to have hers reduced/tightened, I suggest you look into the procedure).
ROTFLMAO. But... doesn't Conne fall between them?

Originally Posted by underwearer

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I recently saw a praying mantis walking around the lower east side in NY. That was weird.
From the Straight Dope (I know nothing about this site as I googled the praying mantis thing) I was out with a group of people when someone mentioned praying mantises. He said that it was illegal to kill them. Several other people said that they had also heard this and thought it was true. I have never heard anything like this and can find no reference to it. What is up with this story? --Lindsay Luke, Silver Spring, MD SDSTAFF Jill replies: I heard this story all through my childhood too. My mother perpetrated the myth that it was illegal to kill them in New York. According to the Department of Agriculture, it is not illegal anywhere to kill a praying mantis, even in Connecticut, where it is the official state insect. It is of course ill-advised to kill them, being the pest-consumers and all around neat insects that they are--those human-like swivelly necks, those eye pupils that dilate at night. (Actually, Doug the Straight Dope bug guy says mantises don't have pupils, and neither do any other insects. What appear to be pupils, and the apparent dilation thereof, are an optical illusions. Doug wants to be the boss of insects.) But among their own kind, spousal homicide (entomocide?)--specifically wives consuming their husbands (or lovers)--is not only legal but common, as one can read in this classic Straight Dope column: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/ a2_007.html. We had the good (?) fortune to actually witness this first hand last week, when my children and I introduced a mate to the female we keep in a tank at home. Actually we gave (or rather fed) her two of them. The first she ate right away from the abdomen up, holding him just like a hot dog. The second she allowed to mate with her, and that boy got his money's worth before his unfortunate demise. The mating took over six hours, then she turned around and plucked his head off and ate it like an apple. Hell of a way to teach your kids about the "birds and the bees."

My most recent nervous breakdown (a summer night in July) was partially triggered by moths. I hate those ******* vile creatures.

Originally Posted by FIHTies

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The first she ate right away from the abdomen up, holding him just like a hot dog. The second she allowed to mate with her, and that boy got his money's worth before his unfortunate demise. The mating took over six hours, then she turned around and plucked his head off and ate it like an apple.
I think Ed has a film like that!

I once woke up in my gf's dorm room and put my chucks on barefoot. I walked around, got food, went to class, came home. I thought I had a leaf inside my shoe, but it didn't really bother me until i got home. I took my shoe off and turned it over, and a very flat cricket fell out. I rolled around the floor like Curly Howard.

In MD/DC we have cave/camel crickets. My old apt was infested. I had them land on my face/neck in my sleep, so I moved my bed away from the window and wall. Eventually, my room was a fortress against them. I suffered in silence, but now I know that they're EVERYWHERE in this area. I especially hate that they like to eat clothing and books.