The Beetles

I've often heard about the Beetles in Arizona but never really gave them much thought since I had never really had an encounter with one myself...until last week. I sent Jared out to give the dogs water and all of the sudden I hear him screaming at the top of his lungs...Lady, Lina, get in here...quick!! Lina, get in here....LINA!!! I was sitting here at the computer as I usually am, and when I heard the panic in his voice I got a little spooked. The first thing I thought was "there's a snake." JAAAARED!!! What is the matter??? I asked. (With a slight panic in my voice now) He said, "mom, there's this huge bug out there...it's going to eat them!!!" I said, "Jared, give me a break!! It can't be that big" Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am deathly afraid of roaches!! So the next thing out of my mouth was...."what kind of bug was it?" "I don't know mom!! But it's huge and it has really long antennas!!" "Was it a roach?" I asked. "No, I don't think so" he said. "What does a roach look like?" he asked. Great!! I thought...he doesn't know if it's a roach. But we don't and never have had bugs so I wasn't too worried about that!! And then suddenly this rush of braveness came over me!! "I have babies to protect" I thought to myself as I walked to the kitchen to look out of the door. He pointed to the general area where he saw it and said (with a quiver in his voice) "Its right there mom and it is really black!! and Big!!" Of course by now, the whole family was at the door with me and suddenly from under a piece of bark from the tree came these huge, long, disgustingly black antennas!! And then came the rest of it...oh my gosh!!! He was not exaggerating....and if you can imagine the loudest scream you have ever heard and magnify that by 10, then you might be able to imagine what it sounded like in my house when we all saw it. Instantly I yelled, go get the camera!! And someone get me my flip flops!! But by the time they got them for me, he was gone. Immediately, I called Steve and told him about this huge creature crawling around loose outside. I told him it was about as big and as black as Jaroms flip flops and he didn't act too interested!! I informed him that I was hunting it down and would show him the proof. Well, I looked all dang day and couldn't find but at the end of the night, Justin went into the garage and lo and behold he spotted it!! Here is the nasty bug that haunted our thoughts all day!!Is that not the most disgusting thing you've ever seen?!?! We thought so. So maybe it wasn't as big as Jaroms foot but we guesstimate it was about 3 inches...it's body. Those freakin antennas added another 3...gross!!! Oh and by the way, Steve didn't kill it...he threw it over the fence and said..."a bug that big deserves to live". So later that evening he was back on our porch. Of course, he let it live yet again...just stuck it in the trash can outside and said "if it escapes this time, he really deserves to live"...So here we all sit, in fear for our lives on a daily basis while this monster of a bug lurks outside of our walls. Heaven help us all!!