Little bugs are a non-threatening part of everyday life. There's no horror element to them. The point I was making was that in the old days the "It" that the other kids ran away or hid from was a fairly anodyne, non-specific character that was never going to kill anyone. Now "It" seems to have mutated and crossed the line into the realistic world.

Little bugs I can live with. Those other things mentioned above scare the daylights out of me.