ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by crescent

Spiders, f'ing spiders, any spiders.

I used to be sh1t scared of spiders as a kid, but thought I'd finally conquered it by the time I reached adulthood and joined the Army.
Then they posted me to Belize.
People had warned me about the spiders out there, but I thought they were pulling my leg to a large degree. First day there, I was going through GPMG drills and like every other Moonie, I had the squits. Felt the world was just about to fall from my bottom, so leapt up and started running for the bogs, with the weapons instructor Cpl screaming at me to come back and make safe first. I told him to fcuk off and kept on running, and just as I was passing the lads at the back of the group, one grinning old sweat told me to make sure I checked under the bog seat for spiders before I sat down.
Just about made it to the bog before my @rse erupted. Sitting there, with the relief and satisfaction spreading through my body, the words of that old sweat started nagging at the back of my mind. I stood up, lifted the seat and had a look. There, clinging to the bottom of the seat was a big brown tarantula spider which had been about half a centimeter from my b0ll0cks.
That was in 1987; I stopped regularly checking under the bog seat about 3 years ago, but if I'm honest, I still give it the occasional look even now. I suppose one good thing to come out of it is that, after seeing all those fecking huge evil looking spiders in Belize, even the biggest UK spiders don't worry me any more.

Yeah Belize was bad for crawly things - but always in the back of my mind when out on patrol in jungle and practising fire drills etc was when crawling around that some great monster snake would be hiding away ready to spring out at you :D

As the elephant is afraid of the tiny wee mousey, so mighty Cuddles is feart of big crunchy insectoids...I was patrolling through darkest jungle in Belize all warry and tactical when with a soft "whop" sound, a six inch wide leaf insect dropped onto my shoulder right onto my yoke. I think it had taken a fancy to my shell dressing...

Six inches wide, it looked like a big green Cornish pasty with legs - a bit like the ones in the horror-bag rations. How I stifled a scream I do not to this day know...brrr. Just as I managed to man-up when the centipede decided to stop for a rest on my rifle a few hours later in our ambush position. It took about three gallons of adrenaline I can tell you.

Almost as unfunny was the day, sat outside the canteen in Split, enjoying the November sunshine and a praying mantis landed on the guy next to me. I was torn between "Aaagh, aren't they poisonous, vicious, bizarre!" and "Aaaagh, oh feck they can FLY??"

Edited to add: All my hackles are up and I'm "brrrr-ing" - despite being in the safety of my office!

Midges in the Highlands - so thick I thought I was going to suffocate (happened once on Lake Victoria I believe). Executive decision to abandon fish was taken, only to find that some w@nker had left the sunroof open...

Ticks - evil little tagnuts of the devil.

Fleas - particularly skanky temp in Manc, walked up behind reception and then noticed her hair moving... blech.

Scorpions.

Everyone knows to check their shoes before putting them on in the morning, but nobody told me that they might be just as keen to nestle in the gusset area of your trousers overnight.

Legs in ... pull up trousers ... look down ... yellow scorpion ... bowel movement combined with impressive display of break dancing.

A friend of mine with Charlotte in Australia...

I was building a rebro station near Travnik back in the day, lifted up a railway-sleeper type thingy, only for a evil-looking brown scorpion to run across my hand. Que much flapping and girliness. The worst of it was that I had absolutely no idea that they even had scorpions in Bosnia!

Mate of mine got stung by a scorpion on the foot...much hilarity in the tent...from a safe distance of course.......he was told to immerse the limb in boiling water to neutralise the venom........apparently you don't notice the boiling water and the sting hurts more.

Also those big bastard beetles in Africa that you run into while taking your mates 750cc m/bik for a spin while wearing a t-shirt.