Why Mysty is now terrified of a fake plant

[AdminAssistant]

Actually, it's smells wonderful!

Like almonds, right?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yep! It's smells more like almond than almonds do. Just a heady, delicious, rich scent with almost vanilla undertones.

I should probably mention that I have a weakness for chokecherry pits. Oh, my gosh, you bite through the cherry into the pit and you get this tart, bittersweet explosion of wild cherry on your tongue, followed by a hit of almost alchoholic, intensely almond flavored...well...cyanide.

I don't recommend doing that a lot, but I do recommend doing it a little. Live dangerously, right? Your body can process small amounts of the stuff...and there's not a ton of it in a couple of cherry pits.

If someone were to add chocolate to that mix, I'd be dead right now. I can barely make myself stop as it is. Cherries are in season, and I have several wild trees on my property.

Uh...can everyone taste it, or am I weird that way, too?

You know, thinking back to the bug cage incident, I'm the one who ended up washing the thing out. I do not think my sister could detect any scent on it. At the time, I chalked it up to my sister's crummy sinus', shrugged, and washed it till I no longer smelled almonds. Thinking back, she could not smell the millepede, and I could smell it even at a distance. I didn't think anything of it at the time. That's really interesting.

[crazylegs]

Really? I did not know that! Interesting, I wonder why that is?

It's a genetic quirk, some people have the correct allele(s), others do not.

[Broomjockey]

I should probably mention that I have a weakness for chokecherry pits. Oh, my gosh, you bite through the cherry into the pit and you get this tart, bittersweet explosion of wild cherry on your tongue, followed by a hit of almost alchoholic, intensely almond flavored...well...cyanide.

I learned once you need 26 grams of apple seeds to create a lethal dose of cyanide, based on a body weight of 120-150 lbs.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Hmmmm...I wonder how much a chokecherry pit weighs?

So, I go out there to water my dad's plants just now (I'm housesitting) and the number of flat backed millepedes coming out of that particular garden bed looked like if the director of A Bug's Life did a remake of Dawn of the Dead. Seriously, they were crawling out of the ground by the scores. Damn creepy. (incidently, that's where we found the flat back that ended up squirting all over my nephew's bug cage. That same bed.)

So of course, I picked on up and started agitating it. Didn't hurt it, just picked it up and started handling it to piss it off. Evidently, they do not sting because I would have gotten a dose by now if they did.

No smell.

Picked up a dead and partly decomposed one (okay, yeah, I'll pick up just about anything, I was in the SC Association of Naturalists for a while, we'll go around with racoon shit in our pockets. ) and there it was....burnt almonds, very faint. But the live ones I've handled smell like Amaretto. Picked up another one. No smell.

What's up with that? I mean, how irritated do you have to make one before it starts to squirt at you? Maybe I should have called it a mean name to piss it off.

Does this cyanide gene thing work all the time, or only some of the time?

Now I'm REALLY interested.

The little tiny ones come get in my bathroom all the time (annoying) in the summer and when I grab those, there it is...sweet almonds. In fact, this is the first time I DIDN'T smell them.

[Broomjockey]

Does this cyanide gene thing work all the time, or only some of the time?

Now I'm REALLY interested.

Works like any other smell.

[BlaqueKatt]

I'm not afraid of centipedes, but I don't like them.

but they nurture their young-it's adorable......

And don't lick the millepede.

awww but it was dirty......

[Evil Queen]

DEATH FROM ABOVE!

*gives cookies*

I learned once you need 26 grams of apple seeds to create a lethal dose of cyanide, based on a body weight of 120-150 lbs.

26 Grams, eh?

[Broomjockey]

26 Grams, eh?

*sigh* Yes. Now guess how many apples you need to get that many. I'll give you a hint. It's more than 26.