The one about the mosquito hawk incident

Yes. You read it right. A mosquito hawk incident. It happens, evidently, and Saturday morning it happened to me. Well, not actually to me, more of a behind me kind of deal.

The morning had already been a little difficult. Miles had a t-ball game at 11:00 just after team pictures at 10:00 and, sadly, the yummy monkey bread I was baking was not done in time for us to leave. So, I dropped Miles and Jonathan off at the ball field and Elijah, Ella, and baby sissy and I headed to Hardee's drive-thru. {Great, now I want a steak biscuit.}

So, I had just finished telling them I needed the van quiet so I could place the order, and as the first words of my order left my mouth I heard the sound of terror coming from Elijah. He tried to keep it in check {for all of 3 seconds maybe} until he couldn't hold back and started screaming. And I don't just mean sort of screaming, I mean like being chased by your worst nightmare screaming. I heard him say something about a mosquito, so I thought "seems like an overreaction, but they do bite..." Before I'm even halfway through my order Ella had joined in the cacophony. {cacophony: n., pl. -nies.

1. Jarring, discordant sound; dissonance: heard a cacophony of horns during the traffic jam.
2. The use of harsh or discordant sounds in literary composition, as for poetic effect.}

It was a jarring and discordant sound alright. And no poetic effect took place. Mercy, me. By this time, Elijah had thrown in the name "mosquito hawk" a few times, in between violent screams, was nearing the point of hyperventilation, Ella's panic was rising. Milla joined in, obviously not terrified by the mosquito hawk, but by her hysterical siblings. And I don't use the word hysterical lightly.

I imagine you know what a mosquito hawk is, but just in case, and to prove my point, here's a little blurb about them {from the riveting www.a-mosquito.com website}:
 

There are many myths concerning "mosquito hawks". This is interesting when you discover that there are two insects that are commonly called this name. Both dragonflies and crane flies are commonly known as mosquito hawks, and yet both have very different interactions with mosquitoes. Dragonflies were not named due to their looks but due to their large powerful jaws, which they use to consume prey, including mosquitoes. Crane flies come by the name mosquito hawk due to their great resemblance to mosquitoes. To the untrained eye, the only way to tell the difference is size, as crane flies are usually more than twice the size of the average mosquito. 

Now, this was not a typical mosquito or a dragon fly, so I can only deduce that it was a crane fly because it looked like this:

{source}

Also commonly referred to as mosquito hawks, crane flies resemble very large mosquitoes. Although it is rumored that mosquito hawks eat mosquitoes, that is not the case with crane flies. Crane flies do not bite people either, but prefer to feed on the roots of a variety of grasses.

Now, I know these guys are big massive, and they flop and lope and fly around without any consideration for nearby people {maybe because they DO NOT bite people?}, brushing by too closely maybe, but seriously? Hysteria and panic-inducing? My kids see these things in my mom's garage all of the time. They know they don't bite, that they are large and creepy but harmless. I mean, I at least thought they ate mosquitos. But apparently they can't even claim that. The poor things are big, loping, rather unfortunate looking, herbivores.

How did this end, you ask? When one {very} frustrated and embarrassed momma "saved the children" {in Ella's words} from the menacing plant eater. After juggling five drinks and a bag of biscuits, interacting with the very nice Hardee's guy {who did an awesome job of pretending not to notice the pandemic occurring in my vehicle}, actually laughing to myself {despite the embarrassment} when Elijah screamed "It's coming!!!! It's coming!!!!" And after he ended up standing next to me, Ella was screaming to get out of her seat, Milla was screaming because the brother and sister she thought she could trust have lost their ever loving minds, and her momma was yelling for everyone to calm down. {Have you noticed how well that works by the way? Yelling in an effort to bring calmness?} Alas, I finally did "save the children", wounded the crane fly, who had finally {after waiting his entire life I'm sure} intimidated some kids. He flew out the door with one less leg. Hopefully he was pleased with his moment in the spotlight, and maybe if I didn't wound him internally, he's got a grand story to tell of the hysteria he caused. A famous crane fly, he'll be.

And then we drove back to the ball park, because that was just the beginning of the day...