Reddish-brown Stag Beetles, known in the Upper South as ‘pinchbugs’.
Pick one of these up and you will:
- have people screaming themselves hoarse to keep you from doing so
- immediately wonder who picked up whom
- not be able to put down the World’s Angriest Arthropod
- wonder if it’s actually going to take off the end of your finger, or if it just feels that way
- start questioning every single life choice that led you to this moment*
- cause your Mamaw’s landlord / longtime family friend to nearly break his neck in his haste to get off the roof and down the ladder to rescue you
- pick up a shiny new nickname from said Honorary Uncle that, decades later, you have yet to live down.
*(To be fair—and in my defense—I was about three-and-a-half. So, I didn’t have many Questionable Life Choices under my belt just yet; but believe you me, I was reviewing every single one of them.) 