You know you live in Hawaii if entomological discussions occur daily, sometimes hourly. After our first few weeks on the island, my budding little scientists are learning the important difference between insects that are annoying, disgusting, and poisonous.
Most annoying insect: It's a toss up between the swarms of mosquitoes that dine liberally upon our sweet US Mainland blood or the frightening swarms of wasps that apparently burrow in our roof awning. I'm not talking about the wasps or yellow-jackets that we're used to back home, either. The island variety are freakishly large, apparently shooting up steroids with their friend, The Termite. No kidding, they are so big that you can literally hear the whirl of wing vibrations from the safe holding cell of a mini-van, with ALL the windows rolled up! Catch them at the wrong hour of the day, such as was the case a few days ago when we pulled into the carport after a lunchtime trip to the beach, and the buzz of the car engine called the entire colony out for combat. The kids army crawled across the garage floor in single file, wiggling for safety as if their young lives depended upon it. And indeed, it very well may have. If the roaches hadn't already scarred them for life, the invasion of jungle sized wasps certainly pushed them over the edge.
Roaches, yes, let's talk about the roaches now. Most disgusting: no contest, definitely the roaches. To start things off, a three inch-er landed squarely upon Columbine's shoulder while she innocently brushed her teeth. Her naivety was the only thing that kept her from screaming. She knows better now. Any roach that tries to pull that kind of bold stunt again will wish they hadn't messed with my flaming 4 year old with lungs of solid steal! Chances are that my old friends in Oregon would hear my girl's blood curdling scream.
The same night of Columbine's perch to the shoulder incident, a faster moving distant cousin to the Big Daddy in the bathroom, scurried across my sheets as I was climbing into bed. Ahh...cozy. Sweet dreams for one and all when sharing a bed with a roach. No, this was not just a figment of my paranoid imagination! He crawled. Fast. Over the bedspread. Then stopped at the edge just to taunt me. We both knew the truth. No way, no how, could I get out of bed, grab a fist full of toilet paper and return fast enough to squish the life out of it. It would have burrowed deeper into my mattress before I even turned the corner. Which is why I pretended not see it, rolled over and turned off the light to go to sleep. Nothing like bedtime survivalist skills to make one feel resigned in life. You may have won this battle, Mr. Roach, but come morning, I am doubling the combat roach killer throughout the house. This. Means. War.
Worse yet, in the middle of that same night, I reached for my retainer. For safe keeping, I had foolishly placed it under my pillow. Low and behold, another roach found it's way to a midnight buffet of encrusted saliva. That's right, it was wedged into the crevices of my dental device. I'll give you a minute to run to the bathroom. You may need to vomit before I continue with our little story-time.
Ready? Okay, where was I?
I, of course, didn't realize that the nasty thing was still suctioned upon my retainer until I put it in my mouth. It was like a slow-motion horror flick. Eyes closed, half asleep. Reach for retainer under pillow. Draw it to my gaping mouth. Insert, antennas and all. Tap jaw into place to position the retainer around my teeth, and three, two, one...popping sounds in my head as the skeleton of one small roach was crushed between my retainer and teeth. Incisors, to be exact.
Heroic and Noble Mother that I am, I swallowed my scream and the crushed roach because after all, it was 2am and I didn't want to wake my sleeping babies (who were probably sharing their bedsheets with a few roaches, too.) If you are left to wonder, No. The answer is, No. No amount of flossing or straight-up Clorox mouthwash will remove either the germs or the memory from my mind or teeth. Ever. The End.
Last up on our tour de'entomological discoveries, centipedes. The six inch kind with poisonous, pointed, fang like antennae. Go ahead, ask me the scientific name, just so I can impress you with my new found entomological research. Scolopendra subspinipes. For all extensive purposes, we just call it the "extra-long, scary centipede." This helps the children differentiate between the smaller, everyday, household centipedes found near the toilets.
In case you are just dying with curiosity, here's a little info on the "extra-long, scary" kind. The Scoloprndra Suspinipes has a dark green segmented body which is long and flat. This centipede has a brown head with antennas. Underneath the head the powerful venomous jaws hide. The centipedes scurry on 42 legs. That's right, 42! The back two legs are more prominent due to their function for clasping prey. Mature centipedes can get up to 10 inches in length. So, it's pretty much earth worm meets scorpion. And all right here in our very own backyard. Geepers, aren't we lucky!
Sure, sure, there are the geckos, the flies, the harmless, but annoying ants, but we'll save the stories about those creepy crawlers for another post. Three short weeks and we've seen our fair share of insects.
Bugged. We are bugged by all these bugs.
Listen up, children, next week's lesson we'll need to deviate slightly as we discuss the finer points of arachnology. Yes, darlings, because even though this island is covered with our friend, The Insect Eating Gecko, we also share our new Hawaiian home with spiders. The scary kind. The ones that look like a distant cousin to the tarantula. They, like the wasps, use steroids, too. Oh, the learning just never ends.
Always on the grow,
