THEY ARE BACK!

Okay people! I have GOT to tell you about this delima that I have and have had for years. This gut wrenching FEAR that I have to deal with every year at this time! I have had it since childhood....as far back as I can remember. It's not natural to be this afraid of something but I am!!!!

Know what it is???

It is those BIG BLACK CRUNCHY GRASSHOPPERS WITH YELLOW OR RED MARKS ON THEM!! I ain't even lyin! If one of those grasshoppers is between me and the door....I'm going in another way! Another door, a window, I don't care, but I'm not walking past it! I have even left the house and gone somewhere to give the grasshopper time to move on, and then come back home and go in! Because, seriously, if one of those things TOUCHES me, I am dead on the ground!

They come out this time EVERY year! I have been waiting....I knew they were coming....I knew it was time! Well.......THEY ARE HERE!!

Yesterday, I went out side to blow off my sidewalk and water my plants on my porch. I bend over to get the hose and I came nose to nose with one! I just about wet my pants and I am NOT exaggerating! I screamed at the top of my lungs and just took off out into the yard! Well, of course Steve wasn't home yet, so I have no one to protect me!! So I get the bright idea that I will blow that little hummer out of my plant with the leaf blower.

I go and get it and I am all jumpy as I am walking through the yard, cos' I know where there is one, there are thousands! I get the leaf blower go back and turn that hummer on full blast and point it directly at that DEMON!

Well, he just hangs on baby! He don't blow nowhere!! I think I hear him snickering at me as he is chewing on my plant!

So...I wait for Steve to get home. When he arrives I meet him at the car and with my whiny voice I tell him the grasshoppers are back and there is one in my plant on the front porch and he has to get it cos' I can't water and it won't let go and I'm scared!

He starts laughing because he knows ALL ABOUT my terror of these creatures! He picks up a water wand (so he can squish the grasshopper) and goes to the front porch. I point where it was last seen in my plant and he just picks up the pot and sticks his head all down in there looking for the bug and I am just freaking out cos; if it jumps out on him, I am going to LOSE IT!!! I will be dead by association! Well, he spots it on the monkey grass and he steps on it which just gives me chills and I of course have to just scream. I make him hand me the hose and turn it on, and then I see another one of my plants MOVING! There's another one in there!!! So he draws back with the water wand like he is Tiger Woods or something and I realize he is going to "hit" it out of my plant. I take off running out in the yard and turn around just in time to see the FLIPPIN GRASSHOPPER airborne and headed right for me!

I don't even need to tell you what happened next! I could feel the wind from that THING as it went past my head from the velocity with which Steve had hit it! At this point I am screaming even louder and telling Steve he almost hit me with that THING!!! He is all proud cos' when it hits the ground it is dead. I told him if that grasshopper had hit me in the head, my cold dead carcass would have been lying out on the front lawn and he would be calling the funeral home to come and remove me! He would have a heck of a time explaining the "cause of death" to our friends and family!

He killed about 10 more after that and it became a game to him to find them. PLUS they are eating my plants like you would not believe!

After all of the screaming and commotion that had been going on in our front yard, I walked over to the driveway and looked up at our neighbors house and they were all standing there looking down at our house. It dawned on me what they must have been hearing during the grasshopper melee!

It went something like this:

Oh my Gosh!! Kill it! Kill it!
Steven, you almost hit me with that!!
There's another one!! Get It!!
I HATE THOSE! Oh My Gosh!!
Get your head out of that!
You just almost had to call the funeral home mister!

Yep, we have quite the reputation in the neighborhood....

I'm going to Lowe's at lunch....for poison!