Hey Todd,

 

My wife and I lived briefly in Ft. Worth, TX.   One day, since we were broke and couldn't afford cable tv, we decided to explore our surroundings and go to a local park.   No one went to parks in TX, so this was pretty odd behaviour for local residents.

 

Anyway, while walking through the dry, brown, grass, we noticed the park was filled with pecan trees and there were fallen pecans scattered about.  My wife loves pecans and proceeds to try and crack one open.  Well, if you've ever seen a pecan in its natural habitat, you know the shell is pretty hard and I don't make a habit of carrying around a nutcracker, so we decided to try and crack 'em with our teeth.

 

This was working pretty well and we soon found ourselves strolling and snacking.  That is, until my wife picked up a pecan and cracked it open with her teeth only to discover IT WAS FULL OF MAGGOTS!

 

Moral of the story: There's nothing fun to do in Texas.

 

DP

Hey tOdd!

I already wrote about poisionous Japanese caterpillars but afterwards, I discovered some repressed memories of other horrible Japanese mutant crawlies!

Our Japanese home had a carport and EVERY morning and night when we got home, there would be these god-awful centipede-like creatures on the walls of the carport.  In Japan, they are called Geji geji but I wiki'd it and they are called house centipedes here in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_centipede - look at your own risk!!!.

You can't tell by the pictures, but their bodies (not including legs) ranged from two to three inches in length.  They hurt less than a bee if they bit you and if you flicked them with your fingers, their legs would fly off and they'd die pretty quick (something my dad showed my brother and me time and time again) but they were still scary as hell and moved really fast.

My brother and I would fight for the right side of the back seat of the car so we wouldn't be on the side closest to the Geji Wall.  Sometimes they would be IN THE HOUSE!! We wouldn't see them but our cats would have the remnants of their little legs stuck in their whiskers.

In Japan, you leave your shoes by the front door, which is a really good idea, as it keeps your carpet looking nice.  Anyway, I was in a rush and had full hands so instead of putting on my shoes, I stepped on top of them and shuffled towards the car.  I felt a hard bump in my shoe, which at first I thought was the shoe tongue folded over on itself. I shook the shoe out before I put it on and a ton of little legs fell out.  I totally freaked and I never left my shoes by the front door again!!