I'm Baaack....and I'm not alone

I am back.

And guess who else is?

The earwig. I first wrote about earwigs here.

And when I say "earwig", I'm not talking about this:

I'm talking about these sons-a-bitches:

It's funny. I don't remember earwigs being around when I was little. Yet according to Wikipedia, earwigs were first introduced to North America from Europe in 1907. They make up the insect order Dermaptera, of which there are over 2,000 different species, and 12 different families! Earwigs are one of the smaller insect orders and are found throughout North and South America, Africa, Eurasia, Australia and and New Zealand.  North American has 25 different species, England has 45, and Australia takes the lead with a total of 60. Although I wouldn't be proud if my country came in first place for that!

FEMALE

MALE

The difference between the male and female earwigs is easily seen in their cerci , or forceps-like pincers protruding from their abdomens. The male has curved pincers, the female has straight pincers. (I probably have two different species here; my point was to show their pincers.)

The common term, earwig, is derived from the Old English eare, which means "ear", and wicga, which means "insect". The name could come from the old wives' tale that earwigs burrowed into the brains of humans through the ear and laid their eggs there.

But earwigs are not known to purposefully climb into a person's ear canals, even though there have been occasional reports of earwigs being found in the ear. So no need to go to bed wearing one of these:

"To earwig" is a slang verb meaning either "to attempt to influence by persistent confidential argument or talk” or "to eavesdrop”.

Earwigs are nocturnal and usually hide in small, dark, moist crevices during the day. Then they come out at night, similar to VAMPIRES, and attack. Well, they really don't attack, but they ARE scavengers and are constantly hunting for food. They are omnivorous - eating plants, fruit, and anthropods.

The abdomen of the earwig is very flexible and muscular. Maybe during the day those little suckers are working on their abs watching this DVD on their mini TV's

because their abdomen is capable of maneuvering as well as opening and closing their forceps. The forceps can be used in holding prey and in COPULATION.

Earwig trying to copulate with me (okay this really is not ME,
 but in my mind he tried to do this!) 

Okay. Here's the thing.

The other night I was in bed. Minding my own business. I was finally comfortable, drifting off to sleep when all of a sudden I felt a STING! on my leg. I quickly rubbed my leg and dismissed it. A few seconds later, ANOTHER STING! Only a little farther down my leg! This time when I brushed my leg, I felt a BUG!! I jumped up, fumbled for the light and scrambled to get the covers off. I was still hooked up to my CPAP machine, so it was hard for me to scream without my breath being sucked away. Jim knew something was wrong by all my moving around so he rolled over and said, "What's wrong?" I could only get out "Bug!" He could barely see without his glasses, but he reached over with one hand and grabbed up the piece-of-sh*t-mother-tucker-son-of-a-biscuit-bug, squished it, and threw it in the toilet. Then he crawled back in bed, rolled over and went to sleep.

SERIOUSLY? That's it?

Now how is a person supposed to sleep after that nonsense?

I searched my side of the bed to be sure everything was clear. (It was.)

I had to talk myself off the edge and convince myself that there were NO MORE FREAKIN' BUGS around so that I could fall asleep.

The next morning I yanked all my sheets off of the bed to wash, and I found ANOTHER earwig in the sheets!

EEK!!

I washed my sheets in hot water and thought that would be the end of it.

Uh, apparently not.

The other night, AGAIN, I felt something crawling on my leg. Same scenario. Scrambling, lights, covers, freakin' earwig, Jim saves the day, he sleeps, I'm awake.

Last night before I went to bed I checked every where. I pulled all the covers back and shook each sheet, blanket and pillow. I looked all over the floor and I found one earwig ready to pounce.

A female of the common earwig in a threat pose

I called Jim over and he killed it.

I only have two questions.

1) What was God thinking when he invented earwigs? Was he having a bad day?

2) When Noah was bringing the earwigs on the Ark, why the hell didn't he just step on them?

NOTE: Information from Wikipedia