Bugging me

I hate bugs.  Especially the kind that fly at you.  Yuk!  And ones with more than four legs, but that’s another story.  Back to the flying kind.  I’m terrified of Japanese beetles because my Mom once told us that she had one fly in her ear when she was young and had to go to the hospital to have doctors get it out.  That totally freaked me out.  But again, that’s another story.

This one is about big flying bugs.  Specifically a white moth that made me almost cripple my brother, Tad.  

We were down the shore, and the parents had all gathered at Grandmom and Grandad Balzer’s house; we kids were relegated to Aunt Mary Christine and Uncle Joe’s house, which was next door.  (There was a parcel of land in between which was Grandmom’s HUGE vegetable garden.)  So there was a houseful of kids – my brothers and sister, a bunch of cousins – and a big white moth.  Ew!  Did I tell you I hate bugs?

My brother Tad, my hero, decided he could catch it and let it go outside.  So he got a big potato chip can (think a little bigger than a KFC bucket, made of cardboard), caught the yucky thing, and trapped it with the lid.  Then he tried to get rid of it by tossing the whole can out the front door.  Good plan, but I hate bugs.  So I had to be sure it was gone by quickly slamming the front door.  Good plan.

Except that the bottom of the door was about 3 inches higher than the floor, and there was a nice metal weather strip on it to boot.  When I slammed the door, I managed to catch the back of Tad’s heel.  Nasty cut.  Lots of blood.

A couple of us ran up to Grandmom’s house to get Mom.  Problem is, with six kids, Mom wasn’t too worried about our tales of cuts and blood.  We TRIED to tell her it was a big problem, but she just kept insisting we tell Tad to come to Grandmom’s himself.  Mmm…  So we went back to the other house, and made Tad a carrying chair by linking our hands together.  We slowly made our way up to Mom.  One look, and Mom was out of her chair and reaching for her keys – “we’re going to the hospital.”  We TOLD her it was a big deal.

And little did we know how big a deal it was.  Turns out the cut was very close to cutting the tendon – Tad was very lucky he wasn’t crippled.  I felt SOOOO bad.  I was especially nice to Tad for weeks while his stitches healed.  Luckily, he hasn’t held it against me.  Much.

Stupid bugs!!