The Beetle that Almost Killed Me

I just had one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Literally, I am still shaking from it. I am on the computer right now. (Duh.) I have been working this afternoon on my lesson tonight for our combined YW activity - I'm teaching a lesson on journal-writing. (Imagine that - the obsessive journaler trying to suck other people into it.)

On the desk in front of me, I have my current journal. The one I keep on my nighstand and write in every night. I brought it in the computer room to write down some journaling prompts I found on the internet for tonight. I have been carrying this notebook around this afternoon, so it's not like it's been sitting in the corner of the garage. That may sound obscure and irrelevant, but it's pertinent to my scary story.

So I picked up the journal to look at something while typing, and something fell out of the spiral binding onto my lap. Strange. I picked the thing up. I held it for several seconds in my right hand, staring and trying to figure out what it was. A stale chocolate covered raisin? Then my eyes gradulally told my brain what it was I was holding.

IT WAS A BEETLE. A freaking dirty, nasty, BIG beetle. I dropped it like a hot iron and started screaming. I didn't mean to scream - it just came out, and I couldn't stop. I ran into the kitchen at full speed to the sink to wash my right hand, where I alternated between screaming, and yelling at myself that I was being irrational and to calm down.

My fingers felt like they were burning from where I had held the disgusting beetle. I think I felt, for a moment, like people who have OCD must feel. Although I knew the beetle was not physically touching me anymore (it was on the floor under a cup - old habits die hard), I could still FEEL it on my skin. It's been about 10 minutes and I am funally calmed down a little.

I was literally crying, and I called Andrew to comfort me. I left him some lame message like, "Honey, I need to talk to you. I just touched a beetle, and..."then I realized how completely pathetic I sounded, that I was crying over a beetle, like there was something he could do about it anyway...so I said, "I don't know. Call me." And hung up hastily. I have a feeling he's not going to be very sympathetic.

But now, with the beetle (which appears to be dead) under a cup by my right foot, I am left to wonder. HOW IN THE CRAP DID THAT BEETLE GET IN MY JOURNAL?? Was it on my nightstand, and crawled in the binding and then hung on for dear life as I carried the journal around today? Was it on the computer desk, and crawled in there to die? It felt slightly crunchy (oh dear, I think I might vomit), so I don't think it's freshly dead. I am officially disturbed.

And how ironic that one of my prompts for tonight was to describe a recent time when you were scared out of your mind. I'll definitely have a recent story. And I'm definitely out of my mind.