Evil Has Wings...and a Black, Shiny Shell

So every night, just before bed, I take the dogs out to do their business.  Usually this ends up being somewhere between 11pm and midnight.  Well last night, I had the dickens scared out of me, not that I know what "dickens" are.  As we walk down the stairs from the third floor, I see this huge black spot on the wall of the second floor walkway.  Sara, one of the dogs, saw it too and naturally wanted to try to eat it or play with it.  Upon slightly closer inspection, I saw it was this freaking ginormous bug!  Fearing it might carry my dog away into the night with its hunormous wings, we quickly walked away from it to the dog park for them to do their business.

After we got back inside, I quickly grabbed my camera, hoping the monster was still there so I could capture its soul.  Now mind you, I lived in Texas for 5 years, so you would think I was used to huge bugs.  I have seen cicadas that are the size of a golf ball, ants the size of my big toe, and crickets the size of my thumb, but never in my life had I seen a bug this large or this black.

Oh.  My.  GOD!  It's huge, it's jet black, it looks like it has this massive armored shell, and I sure as hell bet it can fly.  Oh Lord please don't let it fly in my face as I try to take this picture.  Or this picture:

But then I got to thinking that these pictures won't do it justice as to how big this thing is.  Oh Lord, please don't let this thing bite my hand off even though it is like a mile away from the bug:

This thing is seriously half the size of my hand, if not more.  It could probably eat my thumb in one bite.  This is freaking unnatural.  And then my husband, who followed me out to look at it, was so kind to tell me that this thing would crawl in our window if we left it open at night.  What. The. Hell.

And if that does happen, it will be my husband who gets sacrificed to the evil, demon beetle from hell.  After all, he is the one who ensured I had nightmares about it last night.

P.S.  If you want to know what kind of bug it is, after much Google searching and photo comparison, I have decided it is a Paloverde Root Borer.  Apparently they are very common here in Tucson as the monsoons approach.  And here you will see someone in the third picture who is crazy enough to actually hold this creepy ass thing.


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