Garden Grossness.

Ok look, I don't care if it makes me a stereotypical, squeamish girly girl, I hate bugs. Not all bugs. Just the really gross ones and the ones that are clumsy fliers (I'm looking at you, june bugs and palo verde beetles). And grasshoppers and praying mantises too, because they fall under clumsy fliers. A bug that flies, that's cool, but a bug that you just cannot run away from or avoid due to their drunk driving, u-turns, swerves, dips and utter bullshit.

So color me horrified when I went searching for ripe tomatoes so Alex could have a garden snack and found this instead:

THAT IS A GIANT NASTY BUG. Otherwise known as a tomato worm, the sick son of a bitch. Ugh! But what is THAT?! That... that huge brown thing tucked within:

A huge, scary grasshopper (I call them Garys, it makes it easier to handle I guess). And you really can't get the size of him in these photos. Let me explain. I'm almost 6' and I have long fingers. This SOB was longer than my middle finger (the only finger of mine that guy deserves):

Here's another nasty worm, on the underside of the stem in the center of the photo. I didn't even NOTICE these guys until Todd went "Hey look a tomato worm" and I ran barefoot across gravel faster than you can say WTF.

This guy did eventually get my sympathy however, after getting mercilessly attacked by a fly. After the fly landed on him, he'd clean himself. I mean, dude, EVERYONE on this planet knows flies are gross. Even gross tomato worms.

You guys, these worms were everywhere. It makes me less than enthused about rooting around for tomatoes.

 This chubster managed to get underneath the bird netting (which Todd and I both agree sucks in the long run). Just munching away, getting fatter and grosser.

Todd, who took these photos because hell no was I going to get up in there, also wanted to show our next round of tomatoes that are, hopefully, going to ripen soon:

But all I can do while looking at this photo is wonder... how many bugs are there that I can't see??