Bugs are scary.
My mother pretty much let me do anything. Which meant I was a bit stuck. She was however, a rather tidy and clean person, and the house was always spotless. So I did the only thing I could do and turned my bedroom into some sort of fungi and mould breeding ground.

I walk along. I tread on something. A bug. Can't quite work out what it is. Looks like a cockroach. I'm terrified of bugs in general, let alone cockroaches. I call my mum into the room.

me "MUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!"

mother: "yes?"

me: "bug. scary. what is it?"

mother: "ahh, that's a cockroach"

me: "AAARRGGHHHHH" lots of mental images of huge swarms of cockroaches climbing up my legs, or over my body at night...

mother: "They get everywhere, they can lay eggs everywhere y'know. I'll have to call the council"

me: (fearing some local paper showing my room) "nooooooooooooo"

Cue cleaning frenzy. I threw out my mattress, all my bedlinen, all my clothing, my bed (one of those stretched fabric over wood things), my carpet. I then spent 3 days pouring bleach in the gap between the skirting board and the floorboards, and on every surface I could find. I then went without a mattress for about 6 months until my brother got a new one and I got his old one, and finally brought a bed a few years later.

One of the odd things was that I kept pouring bleach on my toolbox, then coming back "ARGH eggs" then pour more bleach on. Took me a few weeks to realise it was the dried up bleach I was seeing, not more cockroach eggs.

Last summer, now I am well and truely far away from my parents and have been for over a few years, I bring up the subject. My mother starts laughing.

"It was a water beetle. There's a nest under the house. We only said it so you would tidy up the room."

"so you let me go without a bed for 4 years because you wanted me to tidy my room?"

"well, it worked, didn't it?"

Cow. But fair play.
(mmmm curry doesn't really understand this sig lark, Thu 19 Jul 2007, 14:21, Reply)