# Frickin Bugs



## EPJartisan (Nov 4, 2009)

I can't say I am proud of my safety habits, but when using the table saw I do use all the safe tips and keep mind mind focused because I value my hands and body…. it is so scary when one looses focus.

I was doing a normal run of cutting some walnut boards, and suddenly a silverfish ran across the board I was cutting. Now, I have only three fears in this world… none of them make sense, but that is the nature of phobias. Being eaten by something large while swimming in the water…. and two kinds of bugs.. two harmless bugs scare the mess out of me… silverfish and earwigs. I can hold spiders, grubs, cockroaches, wasps, no fear of other real dangerous bugs… sigh… I do not know why.

So I let go of everything right in the middle of the cut…. and the board exploded and flew everywhere… things were knocked over… things broke… and yes I screamed like a little girl, but I am not damaged. My studio mate is laughing at me, he can't believe how freaked out I was.

Now I have to start over on a whole new board because I am a baby about silverfish. But I have to clean the saw first… I can't go near the thing yet… the bugs might smile at me or something… sad.. really sad.


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## GaryC (Dec 31, 2008)

Fears are fears and they are real. Just a great thing you weren't personally hurt. Stay safe but, keep going


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## scrollgirl (May 28, 2010)

Wow! Gary is right - fears are fears. We all have our own things that we can't deal with. I am also happy that you are OK. It could have been bad.  I bet you will be checking those boards a bit closer before cutting them! Glad you are unharmed!

Sheila


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## mojapitt (Dec 31, 2011)

If it was a snake I would not only understand, but probably outrun you. Most bugs I can hold for.


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## Dal300 (Aug 4, 2011)

Hahahahahahahaha!

I'm not laughing at you, I was remembering many years ago when my best friend and I were about 17.
I bought a pet tarantula not knowing my friend had a phobia about spiders.

I was on the couch when he came in and I had the spider on my head just happily crawling around.

The next thing I knew I was on the floor and my friend was beating me on the noggin with a rolled up Sunday edition of the "Oregonian" newspaper. My poor spider was mushed into my hair, but the look on my friends face was priceless!


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## Sodabowski (Aug 23, 2010)

Uh, many a time I found silverfish strolling around in my bathroom… I splash them with my finger each time. After all, for their size, I'm bigger than God, my finger is an F6 tornado to them 

Earwigs are ugly on the other side, and I was quite scared of them when a kid. But since studying physics, I know that these tiny critters wouldn't hold enough energy to make any harm even to a bird, they're scary but have no strength to match us.

As for spiders, well, I had a competition airgun in the shop for a while (one of my uncles lent it to my father for a while as we had a starling infestation issue in our fig tree). So I couldn't resist: I attached a laser pointer to it and meticulously sniped the big spiders in the shop. Headshot each time.

Soda 1 bugz 0 o/

Eric, May I suggest you having a running GoPro each time you're working in the shop?


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## teejk (Jan 19, 2011)

Silverfish need a dark/damp environment I think. I'll trade you for yellow jackets that seem to find their way into my shop and buzz around the lights when I'm working. They can certainly be one of those distractions that can lead to a disaster.

Btw, I can throw in a few pounds of those asian lady bugs if you want (they came in when we built the house and shop and in spite of our efforts to seal all openings, they just keep coming).


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## richardwootton (Jan 17, 2013)

I had a run in with a Brown Recluse some years back which left a divot on the outside of my left calf, so now whenever I come in close contact I definitely jump. I'm not going through that experience again!


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## Tim457 (Jan 11, 2013)

Gopro hah, I think you'd get a million YouTube hits on a video of that. Glad you're safe but teejk makes a good point. If you can identify what environment the two critters you have a phobia of are and can eliminate it it may save your skin. That and maybe have a leaf blower around or brush or something to clean off any wood you want to use. Hard to remember but better than having that happen again. I like the air gun method too. More fun.


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## joeyinsouthaustin (Sep 22, 2012)

Now you just have to mentally prep your self for one more thing when you step up to that saw. Will the fear of injury overcome the fear of the bug??? Might cure you of the fear of the bug. lAnd I am not really joking. I often stop and actively think about what I might do if I get a splinter, or something unexpected happens.


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## Tooch (Apr 6, 2013)

funny story, thank god you're okay. my absolute worst bug has to be anything that flies and stings. When working a landscaping gig in my previous life, I must have gotten stung at least 40 times in a summer… I would run the hedge trimmers and whacked my way through several wasp & hornets nests, ran a lawnmower over yellow jackets nest in the ground, and also had something in my shirt that I didn't notice until I was driving down Golden Mile Highway and got stung twice in the back. I feel your pain, er, fear.


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## sprucegum (Dec 6, 2012)

This reminds me of my youth while working on a rural road crew. The foreman and grader operator was deathly afraid of snakes (bear in mind there are virtually no poisonous snakes in this part of VT) a favorite trick of mine was to pick up a piece of tree root found in or along the road and throw it into the grader with him and yell snake. The old guy was near 70 but he sure could bail out of that grader fast, he was also the best swearer I have ever known. I must have been good help he never fired me.


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## TopamaxSurvivor (May 2, 2008)

Glad the wood is all you lost.


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## jap (Oct 10, 2012)

To be honest, i would probably react the same as you if any bug landed on me.


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## Redoak49 (Dec 15, 2012)

The real question is are you more afraid of a bug or of losing a finger or being hit in the face with a board. If I were you, I would never touch a table saw again until you figure out what you are afraid of.

I am glad that you are not hurt but you can not count on luck all of the time.


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## JoeinGa (Nov 26, 2012)

There's only two kinds of good snakes.

A *DEAD *snake….. and a *SOON-TO-BE-DEAD *snake!
'nuff said 
.
.

But your story does remind me of the time a bee flew into my motorcycle helmet (at about 65mph).
Talk about screaming like a girl!


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## renners (Apr 9, 2010)

Take a deep breath, turn off the machine you are working, remain calm, step back, compose yourself. Exterminate offending bug with extreme prejudice. This is how I deal with wasps, my nemesis of the insect world. Try to remain rational. A silverfish isn't going to bite your fingers off, but a sawblade might.


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## JollyGreen67 (Nov 1, 2010)

Black Widow spiders - If you've ever been bitten by one, you will know why that's my phobia!


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## DonBroussard (Mar 27, 2012)

I am glad that no one was hurt. I can't suggest any other precautions that have already been mentioned.

When my sister was about 8 years old, a mosquito flew into her ear. She started screaming crazily, and we didn't know what was going on-the excited mosquito was buzzing around in her ear canal. My dad brought her to the ER, and the doctor pulled out the mosquito. My dad complained later about how expensive that mosquito was.


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## derosa (Aug 21, 2010)

Just glad to hear you're ok; always nice when you can laugh at hindsight and not have a scratch on you. I have an intense dislike of spiders, I see them, i kill them. Comes from waking up with one the size of a nickle crawling across my face at 3am, didn't create a fear that freak out of feeling that out of a sound sleep makes me hate them. That and the feeling of random spider webs across the face, arms or legs when I walk through them, just hate that feeling.


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## oldnovice (Mar 7, 2009)

*Cockroaches* ... hate them, they scare me but fortunately we only have small ones, not the large Asian one like in Houston TX or the screaming ones. The bad thing is when you spray them they just run away and you cannot step on them because they might be bearing eggs which just mean a lot of little ones. But, I found a solution that works; an empty yogurt cup to trap them and then a blast of compressed air cleaner spray, upside down, which freezes them, after freezing then scoop them up in cup and throw it all away!

You can tell I dislike these! *Now I will probably have someone from the insect version of PETA coming after me!*


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## roman (Sep 28, 2007)




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## roman (Sep 28, 2007)

what ever befalls the children of the earth

befalls us all


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## EPJartisan (Nov 4, 2009)

LOL thanks for the stories and camaraderie … the saw is all clean.. and you know I should clean it more often, not just for bugs, but I think I got a few pounds of dust out of the motor and it runs better. I think I got used to having an assistant clean it…. anybody want to be an assistant and kill scary bugs?


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## Quanter50 (Feb 11, 2012)

I was in one of the chain home improvemt stores the other day with my son. On the way out I stopped in front of the exit door to check my reciept. Something dropped from the ceiling onto the floor right in front of me, right at my feet. It was the biggest silverfish I've ever seen!! It had to be about and inch and a quarter long. Hope I never see one of them that big in my house.


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

Hmm… earwigs huh…


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## oldnovice (Mar 7, 2009)

*Eric*, I was visiting some friends in Freeport Illinois a couple of years back and when I went outside to move my car I turned on the front stoop light and the entire stoop came to life with … you guessed it earwigs as there must have been a couple thousand of them. This is like the Beatle invasion except these guys don't sing … thanks to England!

Fortunately we don't have that many in California!


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## 280305 (Sep 28, 2008)

*Fortunately we don't have that many in California!*

I went to college in Santa Barbara, CA. One day I was enjoying a lovely sunset at the beach. I was on a towel with my eyes closed. Then I felt something tickling my cheek right under the eye. I brushed it off and looked over on the sand beside me. It was a scorpion! If anyone saw my reaction from a distance, they must have laughed until they cried.


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## widdle (Mar 10, 2010)

STOP….


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

Yeah Chuck, scorpions are fun little critters especially when they drop onto you when opening the garage/shop door (more times than I can count but they are too busy trying to hide than to sting).

Here… *Just in time for Mother's Day*


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## oldnovice (Mar 7, 2009)

*ChuckV* there is quite a difference between an earwig and a scorpion!

You can relax as a scorpion is not and insect it's only an arachnid …. if that makes any difference!

*I would have jumped too!!!*


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## Knothead62 (Apr 17, 2010)

Strange as it may seem, we had one in our basement many years ago here in east Tennessee. Didn't think they lived in these parts.


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