If you didn't grow up in Prince George during one of the bad caterpillar years, it's hard for other people to believe you when you insist that caterpillars are one of the seven plagues of the apocalypse. They think that you're exaggerating. Believe me, we're not kidding. We'll take locusts any day.
I was about six years old the first time I remember that I picked a tent caterpillar up and showed it to my mom. She wasn't very impressed. I used to like the lowly caterpillar. It slunk around and tickled the palm of my hand and the skin of the insect was soft and tore very easily. Then came the infestation and they were everywhere. There was a little trail by my house growing up that cut through the bush to my elementary school that I used to walk every day. This one fine early summer afternoon, I remember walking down the trail and seeing a caterpillar on the ground. I walked around it. There was another and I walked around that too. Then, there were hundreds of disgusting little creatures everywhere and I started to panic. Then they started to attack.
Caterpillars don't bite or sting or fly at your face like normal insects. Caterpillars fall from the trees to land on your shoulders and get caught in your hair so badly that you will be nervous about walking through the bush for the rest of your life. One little baby caterpillar is cute. Hundreds of tent caterpillars all around you, swarming on trees or chewing all the leaves should, quite frankly, die. You shouldn't be able to hear an insect eating. It's just not right. Though the actual act of smooshing a caterpillar revolts me, I fully support the activity as a good clean fun for bored pre-teens.
I was reminiscing with a friend about the bad caterpillar years last weekend and she reminded me that her and her brother had perfected the art of running over a caterpillar with their bikes. If you hit the caterpillar in just the right spot, its little yellow insides shot out in a very dramatic (and vile) way. I'm feeling a little nauseous just remembering the process.
All of these little tent caterpillars will shortly be cocooning and hatching into my second least-favourite Prince George insect, the Hairy Brown Moth (not its real name). It's the second wave of the bugocalypse in Prince George and I'm not looking forward to it.
