Biker vs praying mantis

From Miss Cellania.com

This story was contributed by Ubergeek, but I couldn’t find a link for him. It was in the comments at this really funny post on an affair between a praying mantis and a wolf spider.

I'm a biker... I own more than just a "choppers" tee-shirt. Bugs get to be a fact of life, but this went waaaaaaaaaay beyond just getting hit by a bug.

I'm driving through upstate New York a few years ago, just enjoying the beautiful weather and the sceanery around Lake Placid.

Now this all happened in a split second, but you still have time to see it coming in that split second... just not do anything about it.

Praying Mantids can fly... they just rarely do so. Well call me Mr. Rarely:

I'm banging up some small country road when in the mid distance I see this small green dot bobbing along across the road... a second later I get a split second glimpse of a Praying Mantis in flight... looked like a big sucker too.

A split second after that it smacks dead into my upper lip, just under my nose.

SPLACK!!!!

I had goo everywhere... not to mention that it F*****g hurt! There was goop up my nose, in my teeth, sprayed across my cheeks. There was also one hell of a welt. And when I say up my nose... I mean UP my nose. At the velocity I was doing it got jammed way up there.

I damn near crashed my motorcycle... my goggles kept the bug bits out of my eyes but the impact to my sinuses made my eyes instantly fill with water. I managed to pull over and start snorting out bug parts and wiping my face.

But the truly funny part came about 10 minutes later at the next gas stop. I'm still snorting and trying to clean up when the guy at gas pump takes one look and then retches. He didn't actually puke... but he did have to hold it in. Figuring the damn thing has torn open my lip and he can see my teeth or something I crouch down and look in the mirror.

One of those nasty fore legs has imbedded in my cheek... not much more than a bad scratch... but what freaked buddy out was that it was still twitching.

Ahhhhhh nature.