Over on the livejournal there's been talk of silly things that scare us. Here's mine. lj users, you've read this already:
Stick insects are the bane of me.
Basically I am scared of them because:
1.)They are creepy looking, like alien invaders.
2.) They can go from motionless to running *really fast* in no time at all.
3.) They might cling onto me.
This all started because when I was a rich kid my mum grew orchids. The orchids had there own hothouse which was seperate from the other glass plant-growing building in our garden. The two buildings had a gap of about a foot between them and in this space grew blackberries.
I looooove blackberries, so when they were ripe I'd go and stick my arm in the gap and pick 'em. One time when I was doing this I was looking at the blackberry plant and thinking about how I love the berries and picking them with one hand and then my vision shifted. Suddenly I saw that as well as the blackberry vine there were like, a billion stick insects.
It is very scary when you think you are alone with the blackberries and then it turns out there are a billion stick insects watching you. From 5 cms away. I was very very scared and I have hated stick insects ever since.
I even know why there a billion stick insects right there, right then. They were meeting so they could plot how to freak me out and eventually ruin my life. No doubt they elected some kind of leader and all the encounters I have had with stick insects since were outlined that day.
Still don't think stick insects are evil? Talk to Seraph. He has the quintessential encounter with the stick insect of doom story.
Posted by jenni at August 10, 2004 10:37 PM