The Aliens Have Invaded

Holy Hell, Internets. I have the worst, itchy-scratchy heebie jeebies right now. I just found this on my patio. Right. Outside. My Door. Alive.

Not the actual one outside my door. Image provided by Google. The one outside my door is MUCH more menacing looking. For Reals.

That, my friends, is a Potato Bug. Now, growing up, I knew Potato Bugs as these tiny, docile creatures:

NOT the freakish, nasty, shiver inducing, HUGE, disgusting, alien looking things that reside here in lovely California (and elsewhere? I'm too chicken shit to even look up much information on them because even LOOKING at them makes me squirm- so you're welcome for posting a photo here for you all to look at!). Anyway, the first time I ever saw one of these THINGS was actually the night I met DJ (warning sign?!). The daughter of the woman who's house we were at came screaming over to us that there was "A Potato Bug! A Potato Bug! Help! Help! Kill it! Kill it!" "Good lord" I thought "What a wussy" and then she took me over to it and from that moment on, my life has NEVER been the same. I live in constant fear of the things. They appear as if from nowhere. They're big and they look mean. And, the one on my patio just attacked Tahoe (see below) who yelped as if someone had stuck a knife in his eye. It is safely contained underneath a metal trash can lid until DJ gets home and can dispose of it properly. I would get rid of it if it were dead, but there's no way in Hell I'm going to get near one of those things alive.

And because I can't leave you with photos of that thing, here are a few more, in keeping with the alien theme.

I call this, Alien Pig:

I call this collection "Close Encounters of the Kissing Kind"

Have a good day! I hope I didn't induce any potato bug nightmares. I hope your children were not sitting on your lap when you looked at this. I hope you'll come back again!