I live a bug-filled existence.
Not the electronic kind; should the NSA be listening in on my cell phone conversations...well, they'd learn that I rarely talk on the phone. And a review of my house tapes would reveal a woman who concocts elaborate, life-altering plans and confesses them only to the dog.
My bugs are of the insect kind. And for some reason, they follow me wherever I go.
And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves. --Kent Brockman
When I lived at Casa Mysterioso, we were tucked neatly into a hillside. While the 101 snaked through the valley below, our slice of life was chock full of deer, coyote, raccoons, possum, moths and spiders. If you had peeled the foundation away, you would have discovered hundreds of thousands of eight-legged friends skittering through the dirt. Instead, they stole their way into the house, surviving off random bugs in forgotten corners. Some spun elaborate webs outside, one even spanning the width of the driveway.
Generally, I would leave them alone. My mother taught me that it was bad luck to kill a spider, and for most living things I adopt a live-and-let-live policy. Occasionally, one would get in the way and I'd fetch The Bug Cup, a plastic container that I'd use to trap whatever buglike thing and release it outside.
The only insects to incur my wrath were fleas (hurt my dog and you die, as simple as that), ants (too difficult to catch and release), and a black widow that was about to crawl on Daisy (see flea explanation).
I moved last January, into Casa Fabuloso. I thought my days of the slackmistress catch-and-release program were over.
I was wrong.
My new home is populated with crickets. Hundreds and hundreds of crickets. Mostly they live outside under the deck, only creeping out at night when the air is cool. They congregate wherever there's food: on Daisy's blanket, by her food bowl, underneath the grill, happily chirping away.
However, over the past few weeks I noticed an alarming trend.
Every time I would go to take a shower, I noticed that there were crickets. In my bathtub. They were mostly baby crickets, about as big as a pebble with oversized antenna that they use to attempt to navigate their way up the slick walls of the bathtub. I would wrap myself in a towel and fetch The Bug Cup, catching the crickets one by one and release them outside. The thing I couldn't figure out is how these teeny little creatures had gotten into the tub in the first place.
Until I realized they were probably hatching in the drain.
The thought of this didn't disgust me, which is precisely when I realized I should revoke my Girl Card. I rather liked the idea of this entire civilization chirping away in the pipes. I haven't a clue how they survived the water rushing down the drain, or the cleaner I used on the tub. But they did.
A friend of mine suggested I pour Drano down the drain, but I couldn't do it. However, there haven't been crickets for the past three days, so my days of pre-shower catch-and-release are over.
However, on Saturday I discovered a dying praying mantis in my kitchen. After doing some research and discovering that there was little I could do, I gingerly picked it up and put it in a cool, dark place outside.
I know most sane people kill the bugs they find in their I have no idea why I do this. I just do. Bugs that make both boys and girls scream in terror I have no problem touching with my bare hands.
I'm the Insect Messiah. And when the Bug Overlords take over the planet, you're going to be lucky to know me.
