My mom has always had an immensely large fear of bugs. I’ve known this for a very long time, but I hadn’t known the extent of her phobia until I was 7 years old. It all started when me and, my little friend/neighbor, Gary were playing Yu-GI-Oh on the front porch. “I can’t believe I just beat you again the exact same way. You stink at Yu-GI-Oh!” I shouted at him provokingly. “Shut up, you gave me the worst cards in the deck, how am I supposed to win with those!” he roared back just as loud. He had a point I did give him my worst cards. He was always so gullible. He threw my cards on the ground in anger and started to stomp on them. All of a sudden he stopped stomping and said “Chris, what is that thing on your shoe?” I glanced downward and there it was a humungous beetle on my shoe.
I didn’t know what to say or do but my 7 year old impulses made me I reached down to pick it up. But before I could Gary shouted “NO! Don’t touch it, it might be poisonous. I’ll go get a paper cup from your house.” I waited impatiently for about 30 seconds with the colossal bug as it crawled up and down on my shoe. He finally came back out with a white paper cup. I snatched it quickly from his hands. I slowly moved the cup towards the bug afraid of its reaction. It didn’t even seem to notice as I hastily scooped it up at the last second. From close up it looked even more ferocious than before. It moved slightly to avoid my stubby finger as I attempted to poke it. “Lemme Seee it!” Gary said as he tried to snatch it out of my hands. I jerked back and said “Hold on a Sec, just lemme see it a little longer!”
It started as a simple idea “Hey Chris lets scare your mom with it!” Gary Implied. I thought about it for a second and as 7 year old this sounded like a perfect idea. “Okay!” I replied. We made plans: first I was going to walk upstairs and pretend like I poured her some of my “special juice”. Second I was going to hand her the cup. Third I was going to tell her to look at what she was about to drink. Fourth laugh at her reaction.
As I walked upstairs to her bedroom I heard the T.V. in her room on HGTV as always. I walked in her room with the paper cup in my hand and said “Mommy, I made you some special juice.” “Oh thank you Chris.” I handed her the cup and said “Mommy look at what’s inside the cup.” She looked in the cup and stared emotionlessly for about 15 seconds then… “AHHHHHHHHHH!” she screamed and dropped the cup on the floor in panic.
I was rolling on the floor laughing while my mom screamed and screeched like a girl in a horror film. When I finally finished laughing and calmed down I picked the paper cup up and… The bug wasn’t in the cup it had escaped! I ran around the room franticly searching for the bug. What I hadn’t realized was the bug had crawled into one of my mom’s pillow cases on the floor.

We had to wait for my dad to get home so he could find and kill the bug. My mom stayed on her bed the entire time. I knew I was in a world of trouble but as a kid I was often in situations like these. When my dad finally came home he found and killed the bug in about 15 minutes but it took about 15 years for me to get off punishment!