My Phobia

Whilst among nature, I came to realize what seemed to be a mere fear of bugs is actually a phobia. Ok, maybe it’s not a phobia, but I certainly am scared to death of creepy, crawly things….that is when they are not in their natural habitat or they are flying around me. I think this fear started when I was stung by a bee. Since then, I can only remember running and screaming in the opposite direction whenever any flying insect or crawling bug thing came near. Take today for example. A bee decided to join us for a ride in the car. However, I didn’t know it was a bee because it was in a plastic sack directly behind me and I couldn’t see it. All I saw was something crawling inside of the bag making a buzzing noise. So naturally I let out a cry and we found the nearest spot to pull over. Unfortunately, this spot came about 5 minutes after I had heard our winged friend. Mom opened the trunk and didn’t see anything. Once she had closed it and I took the front and she the back, the bee showed itself. This time I screamed a little louder. Mom lifted the trunk again and the bee left. Once we were in the car and ready to go, another bee flew into the car, via Dad’s window. Naturally, I screamed again, this time with tears coming to my eyes. It was an in and out trip for the bee, but it was not a pleasant experience for me. Another incident happened whilst on our trip. A moth decided it wanted a ride too. Even though moths aren’t nearly as “scary” as bees, the trip still wasn’t a pleasant one until the car stopped at a rest area and we let the moth go. And, jumping back to today, another bug incident arose. We stopped at a camp ground to eat. When we were finished and ready to go, a big bug landed on Brooke’s head…in the car. Not only did she jump…but I flew out of the car as well. Unfortunately, she threw the bug onto the floor somewhere in the car. However, after careful inspection, Mom and Dad told us the coast was clear. Oh how wonderful it would have been had that been true. Mom found the one Brooke had thrown on her leg. Since Mom isn’t that afraid of bugs, she gently pushed the bug off her leg and onto the cement. Brooke, however, was not so lucky. As Mom was pushing her bug off her leg, another one came crawling up Brooke’s back and onto her shoulder. Of course I screamed bloody murder, as did Brooke, and we both jumped out of the car. Our cousins probably thought it was a snake or something. But no…it was a humungous bug. If you don’t believe me, we have a picture of one of these creepy crawlers. Let’s just say that the rest of the ride to our hotel was not that pleasant for me. I was paranoid the rest of the drive…which was about 5 hours. My feet were up off the ground and I kept checking myself to see if anything was crawling on me. It was horrible.

Overall, today wasn’t that great of a day. We got up to Dad telling us sternly that we needed to get up. Everyone else had been up for a while and we didn’t want to hold them back. Then we tried to find out which way was better to go to get to Glacier National Park. Dad wanted to go the scenic route….a little longer than the not-so-scenic route. However, my uncle wanted to go the fastest way, so after getting totally confused as to which way that was (ToNAS, our navigation system, was being a poop head) we finally set off. Once in Glacier, we stopped about a bazillion times to take pictures. I will admit it, I hate taking pictures of scenery. We never seem to use them. Oh sure maybe we’ll enter one in the fair…but that’s it. We have thousands of pictures of mountains and trees and waterfalls and lakes and I bet we don’t really know where they were taken because we have so many of them that we haven’t done anything with. At one point at a stop, the bee decided to join us. Also, I will confess, I don’t like the outdoors. I really don’t. I mean, I like walking like at Rood Bridge Park, but actual hiking and camping and whatnot, I hate it. I’ve never liked it. I’ll do what I have to to keep everyone happy…like go hiking for example…but I don’t like it. For one thing, hiking hurts my knees. Another thing…bugs. And today at Glacier, bugs were everywhere. Sure I enjoyed walking along the trail….but the bees and biting flies were so annoying. I didn’t mind them so much since we were outdoors and I could walk away from them, but they seemed to like to bother Brooke and me. I think I am really afraid of bugs when they are in the car with us and we can’t stop to get it out. I say this because while we were waiting for everyone to get back, Brooke and I went to the car to get some water and food. We got in the car and heard a buzzing noise. We looked at each other and at the bee that was floating right by Brooke. We both calmly got out of the car and that was that. I don’t really know what’s wrong with me. All I know is that I definitely am not a nature/outdoor girl.

On a good note, the hike was beautiful. Brooke and I saw a bunch of mountain goats. Most of them were really close too. There was a baby one that we could have touched if we were dumb enough to do so. It was really cute.

After Glacier, we stopped at the campground, where the big bug came in. Then we started our journey to the hotel. ToNAS was not helpful yet again. There were some tense moments in the car while Mom tried to find out where we were on a map and Dad kept missing exits we were supposed to take because ToNAS told him something different. Finally, we got the hotel.

I really hope tomorrow is better. I’m sure it will be.