{"id":741,"date":"2010-08-27T08:55:51","date_gmt":"2010-08-27T16:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/?p=741"},"modified":"2010-08-27T08:55:51","modified_gmt":"2010-08-27T16:55:51","slug":"toe-biters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/27\/toe-biters\/","title":{"rendered":"Toe Biters"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m just going to tell you right now, straight-up, there is no point to this post. I don\u2019t want to lead anyone on. There is no moral or important information to be gleaned. Perhaps it could be considered part of my insect series or maybe it could be classified as a cautionary tale. It doesn\u2019t really matter why I\u2019m telling you this little story. Like many traumatic experiences, I\u2019m compelled to share. It\u2019s part of my healing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been swimming in the lake on the island all my life. There are few things I love more than diving into a giant cool body of water on a hot day. I love the initial sting of cold that takes my breath away. I usually dive off the dock and sprint until I no longer\u00a0need to scream in pain. Then I slow it down a notch until I feel like I can breathe again. Eventually when I\u2019m about half way across the lake I turn around. I wear goggles and dive deep, swimming underwater for most of my return, watching the sunlight refract, lighting algae like dust particles in a patch of sunshine.<\/p>\n

By the time I get back to the beach area, I\u2019m usually swimming among the milfoil looking for the rainbow trout that lurks just under the dock. I came face to face with him once, the day after he took off with my olive wooly bugger fly. Of course, I don\u2019t know it was the same fish, but it happened right there and he looked guilty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was holding Josie\u2019s hand as she flung herself off the dock… Wait, that\u2019s not really how it happened. I was pulling Josie out of the deep water after she\u2019d refused my hand and jumped off the dock when I felt something nudging my calf. I looked down and saw what looked like a pinecone. It\u2019s not unusual to come into contact with the occasional minnow, tadpole or a drifting leaf. I couldn\u2019t really identify this thing but I shook it away and went back to my flailing child. A few minutes later it was back and this time it had legs. I looked closer. It was unidentifiable and like nothing I had ever seen. I screeched like a fourteen year old girl and jumped onto the dock. My childhood friend and my husband both rolled their eyes. I searched the water to defend myself, but nothing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The next day we went back to the lake, and this time there\u2019s something in the bucket on the dock. I lean over and take a look. It\u2019s about 2.5 \u2013 3 inches long and greenish brown with legs, several of them, and big pinchers on its head. It\u2019s bumping into the walls of the bucket, just like it was bumping into my leg the day before. I collect my redemption from the husband and the childhood friend (see!) and leave Josie to put her head in the bucket to holler unintelligible garble at the bug. \u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen pinchers like that before. We were in Namibia eating at a picnic table when our truck driver hollered and jumped onto his bench. We moved the furniture and he showed us the big black bug that had bitten his toe. (A few minutes later he said: If you see one like that with a white stripe, run. It can shoot poison in your eyes from 3 feet.) This one was a different color but its pinchers looked just the same.<\/p>\n

That night I dreamt about those pinchers and in the morning I Googled \u2018big water beetle.\u2019 Sure enough, the giant water bug lives in fresh water lakes, eats tadpoles and small fish, lays eggs by the hundreds and is also commonly known as the toe biter.<\/p>\n

My lake swimming will never be the same, but now that I’ve shared,\u00a0perhaps the healing can begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m just going to tell you right now, straight-up, there is no point to this post. I don\u2019t want to lead anyone on. There is no moral or important information to be gleaned. Perhaps it could be considered part of my insect series or maybe it could be classified as a cautionary tale. It doesn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":747,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}