When Bugs Attack: Praying Mantis

I’m bored, I’m tired of winter and I want spring to come – right now. Unfortunately, Mother Nature doesn’t care about what I want, because she has other plans – more rain, wind, and cold weather.

To pass the time, the kids and I have been looking through their collection of “Bug Hunting” pictures. One of their favorites features a Praying Mantis that took up residence on our front porch last summer!

My husband noticed it first, and yanked us all outside to check it out. The Praying Mantis happily hung around for a few days, crawling all over the screens, but then one day, it just stopped moving. I thought it might be dead, so when my sister came to pick the kids up for school, I made her go investigate.

 
Thankfully, the Praying Mantis had just gotten its tarsus stuck in the screen’s webbing, so she helped it crawl onto a stick, and placed it in a safer, more camouflaged location. I was very happy that she was around because I really didn’t want to touch it myself…

You see, although I think that Praying Mantids are cool-looking insects, they creep me out. For once upon a moon ago, I got attacked by one while I was in Cooperstown with my friend Lisa’s family.  

Her grandmother lived in a big old house up there, and we were spending the weekend with her. If you’ve ever been to Cooperstown, you know that there’s not much for a couple of teenage girls to do, but we were just happy to be in a new town, full of new adventures.

One afternoon, we headed down to the lake; imagine our girly-surprise when we saw some teenage boys!  We were very excited, and hoped that they would take notice of us, so we could hang out with them.

Well, we didn’t have to wait long – because nothing says “Notice Us!” better than having an enormous Praying Mantis land into your windblown rat’s nest!

 
Sadly, for both me, and the Praying Mantis, it got stuck – really, really stuck. And, again, nothing says “Notice Us!” like running around the beach like a bat out of hell screaming, “Help! Help! There’s a bug in my hair! H-E-L-P!”

Sadly, this Praying Mantis was so incredibly large that even the lifeguard wouldn’t come near it, or me. Instead, he just started hitting me over the head with his towel until the Praying Mantis dislodged itself from my hair and flew away.

Mortifying? Absolutely. Funny? Indeed. Could it have been worse? Well, I suppose it could have gotten under my shirt like the ants did that one time…but that’s a whole other story.

 

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