This happened several days ago. But it's so worthy of being here, so we're going back in time.

Picture yourself walking through the forest. It's a humid day. Not entirely unpleasant, but still, it's on the sticky side of hot. It's not a big forest. In fact, it's not really so much a forest as it is a bunch of trees on the side of the river. We're drawing drawings in the mud under the trees. The mud is a thick, clay-like substance, patterned with cracks like a mosaic. It's been days since it rained; days since the river level has been up over this ground where there is mud, and the surface appears like a combination of mud and cracked dry land.

You stand up. Your head bumps slightly into a tree branch, and, surprisingly, completely out of context, you scream in pain. A sharp, stabbing stinging sensation covers your skin under your hair.

Meet the saddleback caterpillar:



Yeah. Fuckin yikes.

This thing is a monstrosity. It hides on leaves and branches and it's a son of a bitch. Fucking thing nearly killed me, I'm sure. I'm not new to this region of the U.S., but I've never seen one of these fucking things before. I was so angry at it I couldn't even control myself enough to push it off the branch and squish the shit out of it, which is only and exactly what it deserved. Also, I'll admit that at the time I was a little afraid that it would jump at me with its spikes or spit at me with poison vomit or stare at me with laser eyes and burn right through me, or something like that.

I admit it. I ran from a caterpillar.

But next time, I'm bringing my squishing tools. Little fuckers.

Stay away from the saddleback caterpillar.

- posted by seanmh @ 3:55 PM