I'm Traumatized

I'm freakin' out here. Can you tell I'm freakin' out? 'Cause I'm freakin' out.

So you know how I hate bugs, right? Yeah, well I was at the gas station, minding my own business and putting gas in the van. I got back in the van while it filled, because I was talking to the girls. And then this bug lands on my windshield. At first I didn't pay much attention to it. It was dark, there were bright lights overhead, I'm accustomed to bugs swarming around the lights.

But then I actuallly looked at the bug. And I realized that it looked like a wasp. A ginormous wasp. A ginormous wasp with a very long stinger-type appendage. And thus began my freaking out. I tried to get a picture with my phone, but this was the best I could get through the windshield:


Notice the yellowish arrow pointing to the tip of his stinger-type appendage.

Now, I realize this ain't the best picture. It's kind of hard to see much of anything. So I tried to get a picture from outside the van. Yes, I actually got out of the van while this bug was on my windshield. I mean really, I can't see something like this and not capture it for posterity. (Actually, I first considered turning on the wipers and trying to smash and pin it. But I was afraid it would anger and pin it instead, in which case he would escape once we got home and no doubt attack us.)

So I stood behind the wasp/creature/monster and tried to get a picture of it, but I couldn't find him in the screen of my phone. So I lowered my phone to see where he was on the windshield. That's when I noticed that he was stretching his back end. Rather like a runner stretches his legs before a race. Or a boxer stretches his arms before a fight. In other words, he looked like someone stretching their muscles right before they use them.

I got back inside the van.

We talked about this bug most of the way home. (He flew away before we left the gas station, and even though we were inside the van and he was outside the van, we all screamed when he flew off.) Janna and I were the most freaked out by the whole experience. Heather claimed to be freaked out, but she was mostly just repeating whatever Janna and I said. Once we got home, we turned to the good ol' Internet to give us a better picture of the Thing that we saw.

We found this picture, which sure does look a whole lot like what we saw:


It gives me the creeps just looking at the picture. I will never get gas at that gas station again. Ever.