Wednesday, June 14, 2006

As children we find bugs amusing, fellow creatures of the earth to play with and tuck into glass jars with grass (how many bugs have died this innocent death?). Unless we pursue entomoloy when we grow up--and so as not to insult you bug lovers, maybe I should just assume the first person here--bugs become icky and wierd.

I must learn to live with bugs again because they are here in our new place whether we like it or not, and this isn't even the country! We live beneath a very old oak tree, however, and in fact there are lots of trees on our street. At night we are treated to a shrill mosquito music festival; spiders creep, scurry and blip out of nowhere--particularly shocking when one is on the toilet. These are spiders in all sizes, some so small that it is only when I realize one of the periods on my page of text is moving that the spider makes himself known. Often I bump into a surprisingly thick strand of web, sometimes right across the staircase as if they are trying to claim my office for a spider village.

The other night we caught what at first we thought was a young centipede but upon closer inspection of its many-legged, yet worm-like form, we decided it was a larval stage of those creatures known as a Mosquito Hawk, of which there are also plenty--though they sure fall down on the job when it comes to eating mosquitos.

But wait there's more! Lady bugs and wasps regularly dance upon my window outside my desk, while silverfish scurry between books.

And this morning, something tiny and reddish was creeping towards the drain in my bathroom sink...so I helped it along with a nice cascade of sink water :)

I remember reading a story of a family that moved into their dream country home only to find it teeming with brown recluse spiders--the very poisonous kind. After discouraging words from exterminators (they lived in a meadow and there was no way to guarantee an extermination) and attempts to catch them in glass jars, eventually the family decided to try living there with the vow--the first time one of us gets bitten, we'll move. Twenty years later no one in the family had ever been bitten.

So this is the attitude I am taking with the bugs whose home I am clearly invading. As much as I consider them the pests, let's face it. It was their planet first and it will be theirs again after global warming does us humans in.

10 Comments:

At 1:40 PM, Blogger Fionnix said...

You are amazing.

 
At 3:05 PM, Blogger Stephanie said...

Maybe it was a millipede? Those guys can be poisonous though.

Making peace with the bugs seems like an important task of adulthood.

 
At 10:18 PM, Blogger Samus said...

This post made me throw up a little in my mouth.

 
At 11:10 PM, Blogger Jordan E. Rosenfeld said...

I'm amazed by how many comments this inspired.

Bugs. Not fun, but you gotta love 'em...I firmly believe that bugs smell fear.

J

 
At 2:50 AM, Blogger Ellen said...

Is there something primal about our fear of insects? I think there might be. When my middle son was little, his occasional nightmares were always about bugs. And me? Ugh. Nothing sparks my adrenalin like an unexpected creepy crawly. If the neighbors hear a shriek from my house, it means Ellen found a bug.

I can't be as centered as you and Steph are about this. I'd fumigate the place.

xo

 
At 6:46 PM, Blogger Jordan E. Rosenfeld said...

Samus, which bug did it for you?

Ellen: yes, i think it is primal and the further we are from being beasts living in caves, or folks living in the woods, the less bugs are natural and the more they give us the heebie jeebies.

jesse, I have yet to check the link, but I shall...

 
At 5:05 AM, Blogger Ms. Lori said...

Bees have taken up residence in the back wall of my home, which, unfortunately, is situated right next to the patio. As I sit and drink my fifty light beers every afternoon, I'm treated to an army of honey bees whizzing past my head, which makes me flinch, and on occasion, spit up beer.

The bees have learned to forgive my annoying presence, though, so I figure if they can forgive me, I can forgive them. ;-)

 
At 5:35 AM, Blogger Mary Akers said...

I grew up in a buggy house and now I take almost all of my house bugs outside (except the really fast, creepy centipede ones). The real dilemma is what to do in the winter...is it more humane to put them out in a snowstorm? Or squash them quickly?

 
At 9:20 PM, Blogger Samus said...

Just about any bug freaks me out. Honeybees don't, because they lived in boxes in my back yard as a kid. I was stung up the nose once.

I guess the silverfish in your books particularly stayed with me.

Guh

 
At 10:19 PM, Blogger Jordan E. Rosenfeld said...

Bug lovers and bug phobics: Wow, you guys have a lot to say!

Samus, yeah silverfish are kind of hideous. Did you read my friend Gayle's essay on the silverfish that I posted here awhile back? Don't read it, on second thought.

Sue: you let BEES crawl on your ARM? What did you have to do in order to even get bees to perform such a feet?

Mary: You've got me stumped! Perhaps a quick death is more humane.

Lori: Leave it to bees to like light beer. I got stung in the inner corner of my eye by a honeybee as a girl but they don't frighten me; it's those vicious bullies the yellow jackets that do. I once overturned a nest and got stung SEVEN times at once...

 

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