The state bird better get its shiz together if ya know what I mean

Recently I noticed a disturbing trend. I know I'm not the only one as others have also voiced concern. Maybe you too have see the unholy amount of flying grasshoppers in the last week.

I first had my run in with the--in my humble opinion--perfect scenario for a horror film a couple days ago. As coming around the corner to the parking lot after just having left work a flying grasshopper hit me in the chest. It was disgusting and I did the freak out-flap awkwardly-squall like a singed cat-thing. It wasn't pretty. I wasn't sure what had hit me at first but I knew it was insectile, of questionable size and that it had touched the bare skin directly above my collarline. Yep that was enough to set me off. I noticed five or six flying "things" while I continued to get into my car. When one finally landed in my sight and I realized what it was I felt utter revulsion. Why were all these grasshoppers just hanging in a parking lot? I'd never seen anything like it.

Which means... there's dark forces at work here.

After I got home Randy and I went to the movies in American Fork. Upon getting out of the Murano and walking to the entrance I was accosted with a spectacle of dozens of locusts flying all over the sidewalk. I basically had a melt down. I lunged out of the way of several offenders and the started to run; quite a feat considering I have total PMS and my boobs have swollen another cup size, are massive, heavy and HURT. The aforementioned extra top-weight caused me to sort of totter strangely in a back and forth motion while attempting to run , much like a circus bear walking on its hind legs. It was shocking. Quite shocking.

I entered the theaters screeching something about how SO FREAKING GROSS it was and with my hair standing on end.

Growing up as a tomboy I played with these things daily. I caught grasshoppers and drowned them. I pulled off their legs. I wasn't scared of them in the least.

Perhaps its payback. Perhaps. My feelings about grasshoppers changed completely the last year of Junior High where we had to make an insect collection for Biology.

Bug collection? Please, that's an easy A. My friend Lucky and I took to the field behind our houses in search of thirty insects needed for our assignments as we did as kids, this time however, armed with bottles of rubbing alcohol. While catching bugs in the field a grasshopper landed in my hair (as if that isn't horrific enough---read on) and I dropped my bottle without it being totally sealed and lost a good deal of the alcohol but it still seemed to be doing the trick. Directly after this I caught a huge green flying grasshopper that I will from this time forth refer to as 'Satan in Bug Form'. Satan was about 2.5-3 inches long, bright grass green, with startlingly yellow eyes. I shoved him in the bottle not knowing if the tiny amount of alcohol I had in the jar would knock out this gargantuan or not so I shook it about and several minutes later even Satan was added to the number of collection specimens.

That evening after rounding up almost all the insects I needed in one foul swoop I started taking them out of the jar and laying them on newspaper to dry out as the alcohol will indeed eat them if left in it for an extended amount of time and I needed to mount them on foam core still. I then went to bed.

In the morning I went down stairs in my night gown to find that my dad had turned on a fan and it had blown my dead bugs around the table. I began my disgusting quest of picking them all up and organizing them on the foam. I wanted to put them on largest to smallest, however when I got to the spot reserved for the largest I found Satan not in the place I left him to dry and began to look under the table where the newspaper had been. I started to carefully scan the horrible seventies printed carpet in the basement. I got down on my hands and knees and looked back and forth. Two feet in under the table, directly in front of me was all three green inches of Satan in Bug Form.

Staring at me.

And getting ready at any second to leap directly at my FACE.

I screamed. I screamed at the top of my lungs. It was about ten in the morning on a Sunday. My mom was upstairs on the phone in the kitchen. I screamed bloody murder and in a moment of fight or flight response I flew up the basement stairs hollering over and over again "Its alive!! Its ALIVE!!!!" I remember the look on my Mom's face as I tore through the kitchen. I didn't stop till I got to my bedroom and dived into my covers only to lay there and shutter in revulsion. I had bug dreams for MONTHS.

Since then I cannot look at a grasshopper without goose bumps and complete loathing. So... if this little fad of locusts becomes a full on infestation you can just forget about it. I'm at home. In bed. Hiding.