As long as I have been alive, I have been afraid of bugs. And by afraid, I mean run-away-screaming-and-jump-on-a -chair afraid. For a brief period of my childhood I lived in Thailand where bugs are the size of your hand (not really but they just look that way) and cockroaches fly. Those six years further fed my entomophobia. However, nothing traumatized me more than the reemergence of cicada Brood X in 2004. Those huge things were everywhere, flying onto people and into cars. For six weeks I parked in underground garages only, patronized gas stations that offered full-service gas (fingers crossed the attendant wasn’t afraid of the cicadas), and ran everywhere (in a zig-zag pattern). One day, I cowered in the corner of the elevator in my office building because a colleague had gotten on without realizing a cicada had landed and stayed on her shoulder. Even pictures of bugs used to make me anxious.
Fast-forward to January 2010, when I was hired by Vault and told that I’d be working on the National Pest Management Association account. I had wondered if this was some cruel prank or the revenge of bugs I had asked other people to dispose of for me throughout my life. Whatever the reason, I had to soldier on and look at pictures of bugs, learn facts about them and even hold a jar of live bed bugs. As a result, I have grown less afraid and less squeamish about bugs. I still make my husband dispose of them if they should dare wander into our home, but at least pictures of bugs don’t give me the hibby jeebies anymore. When I saw this story about the world’s largest insect, I eagerly clicked on it and thought “That’s cool, but I’m glad it lives in New Zealand!”