Patience Young Grasshopper: Or, Meet My Giant Bug

From my blog reading experience, I have decided that a hallmark of Australian expat blogging is reporting on the mysterious/grotesque HGH-ed bug-like critters that inevitably find their way into your home here in the lucky country.

I have been on close lookout in our apartment, having read the horror stories of Huntsman as big as my hand, roaches that could beat me in an arm wrestling match, and red back spiders who'd sooner chomp off my foot as say g'day. We've been lucky so far, though, especially considering that we leave the unscreened windows upon night and day, and that we're within handshaking distance of a huge tree. We've had our run of the mill creepy-crawlies, but nothing Kafkaesque. 

Until this morning ... 

In this corner, at three inches and weighing in at 235 pounds ... Goliath!

(Good blogger: I took a picture of him before anything else!)

In the other corner, at 5'6'' and weighing in at (redacted) pounds ... me!

I realized straight away that this was not a "grab a shoe" scenario. This was going to be a match for the ages.

My first strategy was to wake up the sleeping Partner-in-Crime to make him fight my arthropod problem for me, but that seemed so unfriendly to my sleep-loving husband who still had an hour until he had to get up.

I then thought about pretending he wasn't there and letting P-i-C "find" him when he did get up, but that soon struck me as unkind and, frankly, impossible.

I'd have to fight this one out like the man that I am. 

I decided to go with the "catch him in a jar and slide a piece of paper over it" method. However, I have only ever tested this technique on fireflies, which are significantly smaller and more charming than ol' Shaquille O'Neal here.

First problem - I discovered that we don't actually have any jars. Careful inspection led me to choose a water glass and then cross my fingers that the opening was actually large enough to fit my gargantuan foe. Second concern - was a piece of paper really going to keep him in, or would he use his considerable might to break through?

Back in the bathroom, I took a deep breath and glassed in the captive. His antennae didn't quite fit in the glass, but I took all good and just care not to harm my prisoner of war. He protested valiantly, but my double folded sheet of paper and a hearty dose of tough love won the day. 

Once I got him outside, the brobdingnagian bugger began to sulk in his corner. I tapped, I shook, I nudged, but he did not want to leave his glass cage. The battle of wills continued, and in the end, you could say that beauty won out over brawn, as he finally hopped out and trotted off, looking for less worthy adversaries in the neighborhood.

At first, I was calling him "the giant cricket," although he did remind me a lot of the praying mantis  I found in my bathroom when I was about five (my dad told me it was E.T.). "Giant Cricket" wasn't sitting right, even by Australian insect standards, so I Google Imaged "locust," and found plenty of pictures of creatures who looked strikingly like my Hercules' long lost half-sister.

My co-workers protested that they'd never heard of locusts in Sydney, but what else might he be? Insect experts ... care to weigh in? Or, maybe a DNA test?

Until I hear otherwise, I'm calling him Loki The Locust. And, honestly, I'll take him over some spider or roach with elephantitis any day.