Wrong Place!!!

[agrumpycow]

Now, I can spend hours watching bugs, spiders and other creepy crawlies in their natural habitat whether it's in my garden or wherever. I have no fear of them whatsoever and actually enjoy watching them go about their business. Yesterday, however, I had to pop out, put my shoes on, got in the car and set off. A few hundred yds down the road I felt something big crawling between my toes . Panicking I pulled over, yanked my shoe off and inside was a black beetle about 1inch long!!! Within 2 second the window was open and I'd thrown my shoe across the road! I then had to hobble over to retrieve it (luckily it isn't a busy road)
What struck me is that had I'd seen this bug (I think it was a ground beetle type thing) in my garden in it 'natural habitat' I'd have been fine, happy to watch it and even let it crawl on me but finding it in my shoe, the wrong place, led to me acting so irrationally, even dangerously
Does anyone else behave as daft as me?

[Ann2]

No thankfully!

Sorry Claire, couldn't resist that. I do know the feeling but I'm extremely rational, level headed and down to earth.

Even when a rat fell onto my shoulder from a bush, my heart hardly missed a beat.

Ann

[svenrufus]

Almost identical story, but walking to the shops, felt what I thought was a stone in the end of the toe region of my right shoe, so being almost at newsagent, I scrunched my toes up to stop it irritating me, when I got a huge shock, like I trod on glass, took my shoe off and there was a Devils Coach Horse hanging off the end on my little toe by its jaws. Actually it was half a Devils Coach Horse which is I guess what upset it. I'm not ashamed to say I shrieked, and tossed the shoe away, commenced dancing in the middle of the (thankfully empty) street to dislodge the remains still attached to me.

Also, once had a small spider land on the mattress late at night, just in front of my eyes, turned light on and the perspectve from being so close made it look like it occupied half the room. Again, shrieked, most out of character, but in the circumstances, entirely understandable I feel.

You have my every sympathy.

[agrumpycow]

Originally Posted by svenrufus

took my shoe off and there was a Devils Coach Horse hanging off the end on my little toe by its jaws. Actually it was half a Devils Coach Horse which is I guess what upset it. I'm not ashamed to say I shrieked, and tossed the shoe away, commenced dancing in the middle of the (thankfully empty) street to dislodge the remains still attached to me.

Hehe, glad to know I'm not alone! But at least it didn't bite me, makes me shudder at the thought of it

[SparklySarah]

Mum had a similar experience when she went to put on her wellies. She thought there was a sock in the end of the boot, but when she shook it, nothing came out. She tried to put it on again, but there was still something there so she decided to put here hand in to remove it, and it moved! She hit the heal of the boot on the wall and shook it and a small (and slightly daized) mouse fell out! No idea how it got there because the boot was upside-down. She checks her boots well now! :P

[Varan Komodosky]

I went camping in Crete back in the 80's (I still had a bit of summat about me then), right out in the wilds. On bright and jolly morning I leaped out of bed, groaned and mumped about my hangover, then pulled on a pair of trainers that had been outside the tent all night (they stank).

Can you imagine my surprise when I actually felt something moving in the shoe under my foot - with my full weight on it?

What would you think? Scorpion? That's what I thought. And screamed. You cannot begin to imagine the pain that I 'imagined' when I (imagined) it stung me...

My mates told me they'd never seen a trainer come off a hung-over hippy as fast and as noisily. They were truly surprised at how far I managed to throw the trainer.

When I stopped rolling around in hysterics one of my more level-headed fellows told me, when he got his breath back from laughing so hard, that all that was in my shoe was a harmless cicada. Completely unharmed.

[demicav]

I would find it hard to be rational if I found a spider in my shoe I remember when my son was 18 months old. I'd put his shoes on in the morning as usual but when removing them at night out of one hung a very large house spider, dead of course, squashed by my sons foot, but this didn't stop me screaming and throwing the shoe. Spider must have crawled in the previous night.