My last post, it left me feeling a bit unfinished. Thinking about the whole Light Brown Moth problem reminded me of my childhood in New Hampshire and THE TIME OF THE GYPSY MOTH CATERPILLAR. I was young, probably first or second grade. I can't remember if my sister Katie was born yet. I do remember that The Hathaways (our next door neighbors) had installed an enormous wooden slide and complementary sandbox which seemed to me to be the ultimate in backyard play structures.

Anyways, I would spend a lot of time walking around the perimeter of the sandbox on the wooden ledge, practicing my balancing skills knowing how important this skill would be to my future life as a big city bus rider and of course, possible ballerina. Occasionally, I would put my hand on a nearby tree trunk to keep myself from falling over.

Enter, THE GYPSY MOTH CATERPILLAR. I refuse to do any research on this particular insect, (they are insects, right?) as even thinking about them gives me the willies. I cannot imagine looking at any sort of Caterpillar image right now. Or probably ever. This is what I remember. They are mostly gray and bristly. They grow to enourmous sizes, at least in my memory they are about three or four feet long. In reality I bet they are three of four inches long. When it was quiet a person could hear them chewing.

Picture me shuddering while I type this.

The main thing to remember about these little guys would be that there were so so many of them. They could cover our entire driveway or the top of our car. Entire window screens.

Or overcome a tree so entirely that not an inch of bark was showing. Which leads me back to the main point of this creepy crawly post.

So there I was. Young. Wearing shorts and some sort of stripey shirt. Hopefully wearing shoes, as stepping on a GMC (Gypsy Moth Caterpillar) barefoot was just so...incredibly wrong. I was doing my balance beam act over at the Hathaways and I started to tip over. Naturally and without thinking, I put my hand on the trunk of a Maple tree to keep myself from falling over. The bark MOVED.

No, of course it was not the bark, it was a blanket of GMCs, so thick that they looked as if they were the tree bark. Can I write that again? SO THICK THAT THEY LOOKED LIKE THEY WERE THE TREE BARK. I can still feel those littly gray squirmy bastards on the palm of my right hand. I don't think I screamed, I simply died a bit on the inside.

Ohhh, I am begining to feel dizzy. I should put my head between my legs and breath deeply. But instead I am now going leave the internet to those less creeped out by small wiggly things with sharp and sticky fuzz and I am going to take a very hot shower and use a lot of soap.