Let me preface what I'm gonna tell you by saying I'm not easily grossed out, okay?  As a registered nurse working in hospitals, emergency rooms, home health and a stint as coroner,  I've seen the gamut of disgusting. People vomiting blood, sh*tting blood, blood coming from ears, eyes and noses, pus, vomit, sputum,  feces (you lay people would be surprised how much sh*t the human gut can hold), gangrene, an autopsy where a cadaver's torso was split open, the intestines pulled out and examined and stuffed back in.

Burns, snakebites, oozing cancers--I've seen it all. And God--the car wrecks--including one time when the brain of a MVA victim ejected from a car was found in a ditch, almost intact, and seeing the ambulance LPN scoop it up in gloved hands and put the glistening organ fouled with grass and dirt into an emesis basin.

After a while it gets where you see this stuff, then go have lunch, unperturbed. But three weeks ago I saw the most repulsive thing I have ever seen. A small black beetle- like bug was skittering across the dining room floor. I get ants in the summer, and do have spiders--but other insects--no. So I was surprised to see this bug and smushed it with the end of my walking stick.

Almost immediately a thin brown worm started crawling out of the beetle's head, like a brown thread, wriggling around. I hate worms anyway, but seeing that thing was awful, (like that scene from the movie "Alien" where the alien bursts out of the man's abdomen in a bloody mess.) I killed it and sprayed it with Raid and picked it up with a paper towel and sealed it in a plastic bag and drove to the gas station and threw it in a trashcan.

I mopped and cleaned--but still can't walk across that part of the floor--Yeecch!  I've lived here 30 years and never saw anything like that. Nobody I talked to had ever seen anything like that either. Okay, may it was just a one time oddity. Then 10 days later a spider was running in circles on the carpet, and I smushed it with my stick--and it happened again--a worm emerged, wriggling around. Repulsive. Horrible.

I called the universities in Hattiesburg, and phoned the county agent who emailed a renowned entomologist in New York, an expert. He said he had no idea how or why insects of different species (spiders are arachnids, in a class by themselves) could have been infested with the same kind of parasite. Nematode was mentioned. All I know is I have a bottle with alcohol in it and should I kill another one, I'm gonna collect it and take it to the county agent.

Okay Laura, see what you've gone and made me do?  Susil

Comments:

Strange...that's just wierd.

comment by elfie33 on July 15, 2008 2:24 PM ()

Hi elfie--weird things always happen to me--guess it's because
I'm a weirdo!

reply by susil on July 16, 2008 9:12 AM ()

comment by shesaidwhat on July 14, 2008 2:22 PM ()

Hi she--it's to the point I'm reluctant to squash any
spider that crosses my path!

reply by susil on July 16, 2008 9:07 AM ()

comment by troutbend on July 12, 2008 7:14 PM ()

Hey, if Baptists had exorcists, I'd be calling on one
to pay a visit!

reply by susil on July 13, 2008 1:37 PM ()

Sounds like parasitic worms alright, like the kind we'd find in a horse tank (as a kid) when some insect fell in and drowned. It's very common.

comment by solitaire on July 11, 2008 4:47 PM ()

Hi sol; Don't know why after 30 years I would see this for
the first time. The county agent says the bugs probably sneaked
in under the door and gave me tips on what to put around the
door frames to discourage little visitors. He recommended "Bug Stop"
that contains borax.

reply by susil on July 12, 2008 6:24 AM ()

Now that is pretty sickening, but curiously weird, too. I really hope you won't see another one of those "bug aliens," EVER, but I'm also curious to know what the heck it is.

comment by marta on July 11, 2008 3:40 PM ()

Hi marta; I don't care what goes on in the bug world as long
as they keep it out of my house--although curiosity and disgust
are on an equal footing right now.(The county agent, a nice guy,
is a born again Christian and he veered off into the subject that Revelations in the Bible says weird things will occur in the
end times. Okay--but keep it outside I say.)

reply by susil on July 12, 2008 6:16 AM ()

comment by panthurdreams on July 11, 2008 1:17 PM ()

Amen!!

reply by susil on July 12, 2008 6:10 AM ()

It's just the beginning for the invasion.

comment by nittineedles on July 11, 2008 12:26 PM ()

Dear nittin==Good Lord I hope not!

reply by susil on July 12, 2008 6:09 AM ()

comment by tealstar on July 11, 2008 11:31 AM ()

Hi teal; Yep, everyone has a disgust level and wormy wriggly
things are it for me too. Makes the nappy little hairs on my neck
stand up. Bleaah .
And I did feel sorry for the bugs I smushed, because they
were being eaten up from the inside. Horrid thought. The
Chinese woman and the county agent said the same thing--
parasites are host specific and humans and insects can't be
infected with the same parasites. Just the thought gives me the
willies.

reply by susil on July 12, 2008 6:00 AM ()