When I was 14, my cousin Eric lived WAY out in the country with his mom and sister in what could politely be called a ramshackle old farmhouse. Located on the edge of a dense pine forest in North Florida and literally miles from nowhere, the house was the source of endless amusement to us: there was the time that a bobcat menaced us kids home alone on a New Year's Eve, the time a menacing stranger was sitting on the front porch smoking a cigarette in the dark, and the time when I was attacked by a bedtime visitor. Eric and I were just settling into bed for the night, me in my long pajamas despite the Florida heat. It had just rained - one of those hard Florida thunderstorms that shake the windowpanes - so the humidity was high and the temperature bearable. We crawled under the covers and started making jokes, trying to crack each other up in the darkness as was our routine. Right in mid-joke I felt a multi-legged creature crawling up inside my pajama leg, sending me leaping from the bed in a wild panic dance. Now, if you have ever lived in Florida you know that the state's version of a cockroach, the "Palmetto Bug," is an insect on steroids. Bigger than your thumb, with the ability to fly extremely high and fast. One of these giant creatures came all the way up my pajama leg and up through the pullover top, emerging to say "Hello!" right at my v-neck collar. I'm pretty sure the screams are still echoing out there in the North Florida woods.