Little Girls and Creepy Crawlies

Let me preface this by stating: This Is Not The Bug Blog !

However,

SB asks:

Explain this to me oh man with daughters. Why is that my 2 year old will flip
out if she's fuzz on the floor she thinks might be a bug of some sort, but
regularly brings me ants?
Spacebunny Email Homepage 03.05.05 - 12:47
pm #

Who knows SB? Fuzzy bugs are scarier I guess. My girls regularly dig worms for ritual sacrifice to the chicken, stomp ants and beetles, salt slugs, catch lightning bugs bare handed yet protest mightily the execution of a 'Lady' bug (sexist, I know). My guess would be that the 'fuzzies' are similar to those black wooly jumping spiders that seem to populate the entire universe in one form or another and your 2 year old doesn't want to give one the opportunity to trick her with its disguise. Spiders are nasty things with fangs and many creepy legs while ants are industrious. busy, harmless (yes, Gregg, I know yours aren't), non-aggressive, and their buddies don't get angry when you stomp them.

Of course, no female will pass up an opportunity to be rescued. Has she seen a playmate or relative call down immediate and deadly force by spazzing out over some poor critter? You know; (I think it's ugly. I don't like it. I'll have Daddy kill it.) WHAAAAA! One thing I have learned is to never underestimate the conniving ability of females. I don't think little girls naturally fear anything and they damned sure don't shrink from dispensing the hurt when it strikes their fancy.

Illustration:
I am reading in a chair on the porch, soakin' up the sun, and enjoying the afternoon breeze. My then 3 year old has a young cat on the porch swing lovin' on it. Ahh, summertime in Salvisa.

"khic! khic!...... KHIC!..KHIC!", I hear in my left ear.
There was my sweet daughter serenely strangling the cat, both hands encircling its neck, with outstretched arms so that poor kitty's feet dangled a few feet above the porch floor. Her eyes are locked onto his so he knows beyond a doubt from whence death comes. I must really have been absorbed in the book, because kitty was already about gone (his eye's were bugging out and he had given up the fight except for the struggle to inhale) and had only managed to alert me because my daughter was visibly fatigued and was experiencing reduced grip strength.
"Why are you killing the cat?", I asked - she knows I have no particular objection to dead cats but I can't be a bad example all the time.
"He tried to scratch me." Note: he didn't scratch her. He tried.
"You can't kill him", I stated.
"Yes, I can!", she asserted while attempting to show me how really strong she was by bearing down on her deathgrip with arm shaking determination.
oops!, "I'm sorry, hon. You 'may not' kill him for that". Semantics are important in this house - I swear sometimes I think I'm raising Philadelphia lawyers.
"Now, let him go.", still no effect, "NOW!"
She dropped the cat and stomped off in a huff.

Left to her own devices I'd bet your daughter would not shrink from puttin' the heel to that fuzzy thing just to be sure it was inoffensive. There must be a greater benefit from the attention had by calling down the 'Wrath of SpaceBunny'. Hmmmm......

"Wrath of SpaceBunny"..... Sounds like an 'R' rated Star Trek episode doesn't it?!

Cool Bug Alert!

"Ewwwwwww! Dad, What is it!?" My daughter leapt from her perch on the kitchen chair.

Dad to the rescue! The offensive object in question turned out to be a heretofore unseen type of 1/8" critter. I trapped it under a drinking glas, which has the fortunate consequence of magnifying objects under it, and studied the critter for identification. No dice, still too small.

I poured alcohol under the glass to kill it and scanned it at 1200dpi. Now we're cookin with butter. Let's see eight legs and a set of claws like a crab.

Ran google search for 'crab'. Not a crab. Tried 'arachnid'. No joy. Maybe 'scorpion'. Yep!

Pseudoscorpion! Eats bookworms, poison claws! It was probably prowling inside my daughter's Archie comic!

Coutesy of GardenSafari.net:

Pseudoscorpions, also known as False Scorpions, are the least known Arthropods. They are all very tiny indeed. The biggest is less than one centimeter long but most of them are only 2 milimeters long. They resemble the actual scorpions very much except that they lack the poisonous tail. Just like scorpions and crabs they have the front legs in form of scissors which are poisonous. All spieces are preditors. The tiniest ones can even be found on paper of books where they hunt for bookworms. In Britain there are about 25 species, most of those being real look-a-likes. Many can be found by turning rocks, leaves or by peeling loose barks, but because of there size and colors they are easily overlooked. These species are mainly dark brown with reddish brown pincers. They feed on very small insects. Often the species can be only told apart after microscopic research.

AutoProphecy

This is Gregg's fault.
The American automotive industry is making a huge change. There is a revolution going on in the auto industry that has been dreamed of since the 50's 'turbine' car waas introduced. My advice to you is to sell off anything that gets poor mileage that is not task specific. So, cars under 25 mpg, large trucks under 20 mpg, except heavy duty diesels go on the block. I am exempting heavy duty diesels here because they cannot be replaced for their tasks with fuel efficient smaller vehicles.
Why do this? The hybrids and small turbo diesels are coming SOON. The breakthrough has already happened (Ford Escape hybrid, Jeep Liberty CRD) and by 2008 you won't be able to get anything for your 5.4L Expedition.
Relax, we don't have to give up our trucks/SUV's. Find a safe fuel efficient vehicle and sit on it until the large hybrids and turbo diesels hit the market in a big way. I'm saying 2008. That vehicle plus one more should get us to a non-petrol fueled Excursion type family conveyance. So we'll have our cake and eat it, too, without giving half to Exxon.

Anyone seen the new Jeep Gladiator? 2.8L TurboDiesel, of course.

Tree Huggin' Sons of Bitches

Just how pervasive is this tree hugger bullshit? It gets into everything like sand in your shorts. Example:

We recently swapped an older Ford Excursion for a new Jeep Liberty Diesel and the wife is understandably proud of her unique, and hypercapable vehicle. She couldn't wait to show it to a lifelong buddy, 'Angel', so they met up for a shopping spree. Go figure.
Anywho, Angel made over the wife's truck and then stated that she was 'proud' of her for 'downsizing' because those big trucks are so dangerous to others in little cars. The wife let her know that more people in little cars are hurt or killed by smashing themselves against trees than are killed by impacts with large SUVs/trucks.
This sort of exchange absolutely sickens me. It is not rocket science to realize that a little thing hit by a big thing is destroyed. So what Angel said to my wife was, 'I am so proud of you for putting your children at greater risk of injury to make me feel safer in my POS car I bought because I care more about spending money on gas than I do the safety of my child'.
----disclaimer - The Liberty does not show a significant increase in deaths per million vehicles as opposed to the Excursion. I checked, don't doubt it.
What is with these pie-eyed zombies? The old cathode ray tube really does a number on some folks.

Here's the real world data.
How Does Your Car / Truck/ Minivan stack up?
Cars vs Trucks (and SUVs')