They're not kidding when they say EVERYTHING'S bigger in Texas!

Until I moved to Texas nearly twenty years ago, I had never seen the variety of bugs they have in this state. All different kinds. A LOT of bugs.

Most of 'em are HUGE.

Take cockroaches. PLEASE. I very rarely saw them up North. Here, they're EVERYWHERE. It doesn't matter how clean you keep your home or apartment, more than likely, you're gonna have an encounter with one (if there's one, guaranteed, you'll find his family).

Some of them grow into AMAZING sizes. Like waterbugs. (What some Southerners call "Palmetto Bugs.") HUGE ain't the WORD for it. Some of those suckers are big enough to ride on!! Okay, I'm exaggerating. But I've seen 'em two, three inches long. I'm sorry...bugs should NOT be THAT big. How do you kill a waterbug? Most people step on 'em...not me. Can't stand to hear them crunch... I call the neighbor!!! (And I won't let the neighbor step on them, either.) If a neighbor ain't around, I get the biggest container I can find, work up my courage, & try to nudge him into it (praying the whole time he don't crawl out onto my arm...that would be it for me...just bury me now!!), then run like thunder & throw it outside.

Spiders. Creepy little things...eight legs, all them eyeballs looking at you.

Some of them (I think most of them in Texas) are poisonous. Black widows. Get bit by one of them & you may find out why they're called "widows." But the truly NAAASTY specimen I've had encounters with is the Brown Recluse (or, more commonly known as "Fiddlebacks") Spider. They hide in dark places. Like closets. In drawers. In your clothes. In your shoes. In your bed (hope you sleep well tonight!!). Get bit by one of them, you develop a blister. A couple of days later, you find you've been targeted...literally. The area around the blister looks like a target. Bullseye! If you don't get it treated, that area can start to rot. It takes months to get over a bite from the brown recluse...I know. Been bit under the armpit (that was a joy, trying to put deoderant on!), on the rear (lots of fun sitting down) & on the upper thigh. Thank God, I knew what bit me, so I immediately went & got treatment. Still, it took a while to get over it, & I still have scarring. It could have been worse...a friend of mine got bit on the eyelid when she went into her closet & nearly lost her eye.

And TARANTULAS. Dang...they're HUGE! I've seen 'em as big as your hand! They're not so bad here (THANK GOD), but out in West Texas, or so I've been told, thousands of them will cross a highway. Had one crawl up my leg once. I like to have died...looked down, there he was, on my knee. I screeched bloody murder & kinda swiped him off my leg...he went sailing & landed on my downstairs-neighbor-across-the-way's porch. It wouldn't have been so bad, but he landed on a plate of cookies she'd had on her little table...she'd gone inside to answer the phone. When she came out, she saw the tarantula there, screamed; I said, "What?? What???" She said, "There's a TARANTULA...& he's on--my--COOKIES!!!!"

But there's one teeny, tiny insect that causes big problems here in the state of Texas.

The fire ant.

Those little bad boys are NAAASTY. When they bite you, you know it. (Burning pain is why they're called "FIRE" ants.) They leave blisters that ITCH...bad. You can go MAD scratching at the bite of fire ants. Water don't stop 'em, either...I was at a picnic once, started getting bit, so I thought I'd outsmart the little guys & go stand in a puddle of water. They followed me & chewed me up some more. Little creeps! They build their mounds & millions & millions of 'em live in them. Their mounds can get HUGE. They also like to get into electrical power boxes. (Guess the wiring tastes good or something.) They cause all sorts of damage to electrical lines, outdoor air conditioning units & power boxes.

Then, there's the weather. That's a whole 'nother subject in itself!!

Hailstones that get to the size of GRAPEFRUITS...

Tornadoes...

Lightning...

'Nother time we'll discuss the weather. That's a BIG TIME oddity here in Texas!!