MANTIS

 

I have been taking an incredible amount of time working on may latest post entitled "Mehiko" and I'm still working on it, but this morning I thought of a slightly funny story and I got a hankerin' to share it with you.

 

This story will be known from this day forth on the records of this blog as

 

 

MANTIS

 

PART 1

 

As I'm sure you already know a Mantis or "praying Mantis" is a very scary looking insect that is found around here in the summer, they are very religious and can be seen praying no matter where they are found, however in spite of their constant praying I cannot recall ever seeing one in church. So if you assumed that this story is about a praying mantis then you are wrong, it's actually about three separate praying mantes, two of which end up dead.

 

This story begins about three years ago when was working on a job site in Draper, Utah. We were just about to finish up the job, all that was left to do was to throw all of the wood scraps in the garbage and sweep up. As I was trying to grab a large armful of scrap I felt a sudden and very painful pinch on my finger, this really freaked me out and as any other man would do I let out a yell, dropped the scraps and jumped back to nurse my wound.
After doing a thorough examination of my finger and finding no major physical trauma (just mental) I then preceded to try to find out what bit me. I carefully sifted around in the scrap pile for a while, being sure to avoid any other injury, when I came upon a praying mantis that had apparently been fatally injured when someone after being startled by it's very own bite dropped an armful of wood on it.

 

As you can possibly imagine this experience has been a matter of deep mental and emotional anguish. I can't even see a mantis without remembering the extreme pain I experienced for those few very long seconds of that day, and although the pain went away almost instantly, and there was no sort of scar or even a minor scratch, the skin had become slightly red for a minute or two and that, I will never overcome.

 

And just to clarify I believe that if I were to get in a fight with a mantis I would stand a fairly good chance of winning.

Now, out of all honesty I cannot say that my fear of the praying mantis came from this experience alone, it was simply compounded.  I do however feel completely justified in having this fear, after all, there are several characteristics of a mantis that are very scary. Here is a picture explaining the six key elements that make a praying mantis scary.

1.Tiny head with huge creepy looking eyes

2. Crazy long arms with pinchers and sharp spiky looking things on them

3. Another set of pinchers on their face, as if the ones on the arms isn't enough

4. Wings so they can fly at you and attack your face

5. long agile legs to run up your arm and attack your face

6. A curved body that looks like a deadly worm

 

 

PART 2

Now that you know my feelings about the praying mantis I will continue with the second part of the story. This happened on another job site in Lehi, it was a hot summer day and I was doing some work on the stairway of a house that leads to the basement. As I walked down the stairs I noticed a large tan colored mantis on the stairway, I have always been told that praying mantises are good and harmless to humans (yeah right) so I decided to spare this insects life.

 I knew that the stairway wouldn't be a safe place for the little guy so I decided that I would set it outside where it could go free and terrorize some other construction workers. Now as you know from my past experience and the upper photo (with included explanation) it could be very dangerous to pick up this bug with my hands so I found a board and herded the insect onto it. I was somehow able to get the mantis safely ("safely" meaning my safety) to the basement window before it was able to run up my arm to attack my face. I gently placed the board and insect in the window well and quickly closed the window so it couldn't fly back in (and attack). I felt really great to have saved this insects life, even though it probably would have attacked me if it were given the opportunity.

After an hour or so I decided to go back to the basement window to make sure the mantis was able to get away. As I approached the window I saw something truly awesome as you will see in the picture below.

 

 

This is what I saw when I opened the window. A large green praying mantis had the brown one in a submission hold and was eating the head of the mantis that I had so carefully rescued only an hour earlier.
It warms the heart!

THE END