Potato Bugs...not cool.

This has to be said, for those of you who are not fully aware of the somewhat gruesomeness of many of God's creations... I personally think God must have a sense of humor, otherwise, really, WHAT WAS HE THINKING??? 

I was talking to a friend a couple of days ago and she was telling a story about her son looking for "potato bugs" in the back yard.  As soon as I heard the words "potato bug", I had to stop her with a "Say WHAT? There are POTATO BUGS in Utah?!?!?"  She looked at me like I was loony, no argument there.  "Of course there are potato bugs in Utah.  Aren't they everywhere?".  Suddenly it hit me that our definitions of "potato bug" were not jiving.  We went straight to the internet and Googled "potato bug".  She quickly understood why I was horrified at the thought of her son playing with potato bugs.

She was talking about these innocent little creatures, appropriately called "Rollie Pollies".  Everyone has childhood memories of playing with these silly little bugs that roll up into balls in your hand and look like a tiny version of an armadillo. 

Of course her son was playing with these.  WHO HASN'T??

Wanna know why I almost passed out at the thought of a POTATO BUG??

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From www.potatobugs.com:  The common Potato Bug is also known as the Jerusalem cricket. Our Native American friends call him “Woh-tzi-Neh” (Old Bald-Headed Man). In Latin America, he’s “niña de la tierra” (child of the earth). Other names include: Satan's fetus, the Devil's spawn, the Devil's child, the Devil's baby, the Devil's fetus, evil fetus, bald devil fetus, bald fetus of Satan, and earth fetus.

Do you get it now??  Maybe you have to be from California.  Most people from central or northern Cali have come into contact with them.  They don't hurt you, they just scare you to death.  These things can get really big and when they walk across hard surfaces...you can hear them!  They have opposable thumbs for crying out loud!! Not cool.

When my family first moved to the Central Coast in 1990, none of us had ever seen one.  None of us knew they existed.  They burrow in the grass so if you wanted to find one, they are really easy to come across.  My first experience with one was seeing/hearing one run across the linoleum kitchen floor and I screamed a scream that my mom was sure would be my last.  From that moment on, I never went barefoot in our house or across our lawn.  Warning:  if you see one, DON'T CRUSH IT!  It's a sound that you will never get out of your memory...EVER!

They are ungodly.  In short, they could easily be one of the top reasons why we left California.