Bugs
First, let me caution you: this is not a treatise on computer or software problems. This is my whinge about insects, critters, creepy-crawlies. It’s such a stereotype—a female who hates bugs. And I don’t know where it came from. But I can’t recall ever liking anything with more than four legs. As a child, I used to systematically engineer ways to stuff up anthills; I ran from bees and wasps; my mother cautioned me how filthy flies were. Finally, as an adult I declared that nothing with more than four legs could live under the same roof. A former husband cautioned me that crickets were good luck (but they kept me awake at night and eat clothes) or that spiders should be left alone because they eat other bugs (not fast enough). I’ll admit that I am biased against the critters, mostly because they’re ugly. I don’t feel quite the same revulsion for butterflies, dragonflies and bugs that have some attractiveness about them. But I still don’t want them crawling around my house.
Case in point: I once visited the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Park where there is a large butterfly aviary. It is into this wonderland that visitors can walk and view some of the rarest species of butterflies on earth. We had a brief speech by a docent, and there was a colourful poster at the entrance, both illustrating the rarest species of butterfly in residence there,
a bright blue beauty called the Blue Morpho (Morpho menelaus). While I wandered about, looking at all the pretty things flying through the air and perched on flowers and leaves, one large Morpho Menelaus (I think) landed on my face. Ah yes, one of the rarest, most beautiful bugs in the world had taken up roost on my cheek and was sniffing about with its proboscis and creeping about with its tiny little, creepy feet. My insect-hating brain kept screaming signals to my hand, “Smack it! Smack it!” But I knew that would be looked upon unfavourably by my hosts, the San Diego Zoo. Greenpeace would surely come and get me. So I gritted my teeth and tried to smile for my companion who unadvisedly was trying to photograph the event. The endangered critter finally flew away to contribute to its limited gene pool some day, and I nearly fainted from having to exert my will over instinct for so long.
Another episode involved multiple insects during the early days of my residence in my first home. I had recently been transferred by the US Navy to Key West, Florida, and found a rental home—one half of an attached duplex, as there was no on-base accommodation for women at either the Naval Station in Key West or the Naval Air Station on Boca Chica, about 12 miles away, where I was assigned. I had never lived in a place that didn’t experience the killing cold of winter, so the numbers of most six- and eight-legged creatures that harass humankind were reduced in the cold. This meant that you had to really want an infestation or live in a building that was already seriously infested to experience vast numbers of cockroaches, fleas, ants, ticks, bedbugs, etc. Once I had moved my personal possessions into my newly acquired residence, I left to stock up on groceries and essentials like dishes, an iron and ironing board, and so on. I bought so many things that I had to leave my groceries on the kitchen counter to return to the car for another load.
When I re-entered the kitchen, my paper grocery sacks were literally crawling with cockroaches. Where I grew up, not only were flies disgusting disease carriers but so were cockroaches. The only thing that saved us from ‘roaches, according to my mother, is that one had to live in filth in order to attract cockroaches. I was horrified. I beat my groceries with my new broom, breaking eggs, smashing snacks, and probably not killing very many of the vermin. My tenure of only a few months there consisted of a duel between my neighbours and me. I would hear the hiss of an insecticide can one evening and expect to see refugee cockroaches before the morning. I would spray as soon as possible after that and enjoy a few critter-less days before I heard the whooshing spray of my neighbours’ retaliation. While living there, I also experienced my first swarm of termite alates (winged ones). I was advised that the only defence was essentially to retain the vast piles of wings that accumulated as the bugs lost them, to move underground and reproduce. After all, it wasn’t my house. One restrained the drifts of little wings by placing shallow containers of water under lights and near places where piles of wings had been seen. And to make your bed. And cover up anything you didn’t want to contain wings. Late at night, I would wonder about the next termite swarm or the hordes of cockroaches hiding in the walls, while I listened to carpenter ants eating my closet door from the inside out, ‘crunch, crunch, crunch!’ Ugh!
My last illustration is a general observation about Australian bugs. They don’t like me. I imagine it’s not personal but the result of my not having been stung, bitten or impaled from childhood and therefore being bereft of any bodily defence against their toxins, poisons, venoms, juices. My experiences with March flies, ticks, bull ants and mosquitoes have all been the same: the site of the attack swells up to amazing proportions, often bruising (because I scratch them…because they itch beyond endurance), and taking weeks, sometimes months to heal. Additionally, there is a huge spider ominously named the Huntsman, which I am assured is harmless to people. But you can’t step on/squash something as large as a pin dish. What a mess that would make! We saw the occasional chocolate tarantula skittering across the road when I lived in Arkansas, but never saw one in my house, as you can with Huntsman spiders.
So, I have to make life choices and decide whether to poison my home with insecticides or allow the nasty critters to roam free. It’s not a difficult decision. I may regret it if a physician ever diagnoses me with some ailment related to bug spray, but in the meantime, bugs die horrible deaths in my home, one way or another. They don’t pay rent, so they can’t live here. Unlike housemates, they don’t help take out the rubbish, wash dishes or cook. Unlike pets, they aren’t cuddly, nor do they give what humans can pretend is affection. Eating other bugs is not redemption for having too many legs and being ugly. When I was a kid, America’s oldest insecticide, Black Flag (which contained DDT and Chlordane until 1973 and 1988, respectively) had an advertising campaign reminiscent of American anti-Communist propaganda, “The only good bug is a dead bug.” My sentiments exactly.
Case in point: I once visited the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Park where there is a large butterfly aviary. It is into this wonderland that visitors can walk and view some of the rarest species of butterflies on earth. We had a brief speech by a docent, and there was a colourful poster at the entrance, both illustrating the rarest species of butterfly in residence there,
a bright blue beauty called the Blue Morpho (Morpho menelaus). While I wandered about, looking at all the pretty things flying through the air and perched on flowers and leaves, one large Morpho Menelaus (I think) landed on my face. Ah yes, one of the rarest, most beautiful bugs in the world had taken up roost on my cheek and was sniffing about with its proboscis and creeping about with its tiny little, creepy feet. My insect-hating brain kept screaming signals to my hand, “Smack it! Smack it!” But I knew that would be looked upon unfavourably by my hosts, the San Diego Zoo. Greenpeace would surely come and get me. So I gritted my teeth and tried to smile for my companion who unadvisedly was trying to photograph the event. The endangered critter finally flew away to contribute to its limited gene pool some day, and I nearly fainted from having to exert my will over instinct for so long.Another episode involved multiple insects during the early days of my residence in my first home. I had recently been transferred by the US Navy to Key West, Florida, and found a rental home—one half of an attached duplex, as there was no on-base accommodation for women at either the Naval Station in Key West or the Naval Air Station on Boca Chica, about 12 miles away, where I was assigned. I had never lived in a place that didn’t experience the killing cold of winter, so the numbers of most six- and eight-legged creatures that harass humankind were reduced in the cold. This meant that you had to really want an infestation or live in a building that was already seriously infested to experience vast numbers of cockroaches, fleas, ants, ticks, bedbugs, etc. Once I had moved my personal possessions into my newly acquired residence, I left to stock up on groceries and essentials like dishes, an iron and ironing board, and so on. I bought so many things that I had to leave my groceries on the kitchen counter to return to the car for another load.
When I re-entered the kitchen, my paper grocery sacks were literally crawling with cockroaches. Where I grew up, not only were flies disgusting disease carriers but so were cockroaches. The only thing that saved us from ‘roaches, according to my mother, is that one had to live in filth in order to attract cockroaches. I was horrified. I beat my groceries with my new broom, breaking eggs, smashing snacks, and probably not killing very many of the vermin. My tenure of only a few months there consisted of a duel between my neighbours and me. I would hear the hiss of an insecticide can one evening and expect to see refugee cockroaches before the morning. I would spray as soon as possible after that and enjoy a few critter-less days before I heard the whooshing spray of my neighbours’ retaliation. While living there, I also experienced my first swarm of termite alates (winged ones). I was advised that the only defence was essentially to retain the vast piles of wings that accumulated as the bugs lost them, to move underground and reproduce. After all, it wasn’t my house. One restrained the drifts of little wings by placing shallow containers of water under lights and near places where piles of wings had been seen. And to make your bed. And cover up anything you didn’t want to contain wings. Late at night, I would wonder about the next termite swarm or the hordes of cockroaches hiding in the walls, while I listened to carpenter ants eating my closet door from the inside out, ‘crunch, crunch, crunch!’ Ugh!
My last illustration is a general observation about Australian bugs. They don’t like me. I imagine it’s not personal but the result of my not having been stung, bitten or impaled from childhood and therefore being bereft of any bodily defence against their toxins, poisons, venoms, juices. My experiences with March flies, ticks, bull ants and mosquitoes have all been the same: the site of the attack swells up to amazing proportions, often bruising (because I scratch them…because they itch beyond endurance), and taking weeks, sometimes months to heal. Additionally, there is a huge spider ominously named the Huntsman, which I am assured is harmless to people. But you can’t step on/squash something as large as a pin dish. What a mess that would make! We saw the occasional chocolate tarantula skittering across the road when I lived in Arkansas, but never saw one in my house, as you can with Huntsman spiders.
So, I have to make life choices and decide whether to poison my home with insecticides or allow the nasty critters to roam free. It’s not a difficult decision. I may regret it if a physician ever diagnoses me with some ailment related to bug spray, but in the meantime, bugs die horrible deaths in my home, one way or another. They don’t pay rent, so they can’t live here. Unlike housemates, they don’t help take out the rubbish, wash dishes or cook. Unlike pets, they aren’t cuddly, nor do they give what humans can pretend is affection. Eating other bugs is not redemption for having too many legs and being ugly. When I was a kid, America’s oldest insecticide, Black Flag (which contained DDT and Chlordane until 1973 and 1988, respectively) had an advertising campaign reminiscent of American anti-Communist propaganda, “The only good bug is a dead bug.” My sentiments exactly.
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