Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Bug Stories

It all started innocently enough. Anitra asked if I'd mind a worm bin at Real Change. "Sure," I said. "What could go wrong?" Then, someone turned the kitchen light out one night and the little guys spread themselves out across our conference room floor. Staff had to round them up with tiny rodeo clowns and coax then back into the bin with trails of lettuce. I wasn't actually around for this, but that's what I heard.

I'm not usually one to notice insects, but lately, it seems like they've been after me. This morning, I'm driving the girls to school, and I've slowed to a stop for a red light, and the most enormous dragonfly I've ever seen hovers for about five seconds in front of my car windshield. I mean, the light turned green, but I couldn't move because I didn't want to hit this thing that was about five inches long with a head like a golf ball. I tried to find photos of Washington State dragonflies online and didn't have any luck, although I did find this amazing gallery. I did find this photo when I image Googled "fucking huge dragonfly," (kids, don't try this at home) and he's close. Except mine didn't have yellow spots and was fatter, with a bigger head. There's a giant dragonfly in Australia that's supposed to be prehistoric and about a foot long. Maybe one of those got here on a cruise ship or something.

And what's up with the spiders? Our backyard seems to have been invaded and they totally creep me out. Yes, they are a miracle. But they also jump. I've seen it.

The other thing I've been noticing lately is earwigs, which are everyone's favorite creepy bug. The Earwigs was the name of Alice Cooper's high school band. My four year-old told me yesterday that one of her little friends said they try to live in your ears. "That's not true," I said. "That's just a story. Next time you see her, tell her you know what earwigs really do. They get into your ear and eat their way through your brain until they come out the other side. That isn't true either, but it's a way better story." She seemed to appreciate this.

2 comments:

Dr. Wes Browning said...

One time I was oiling down an old scythe that had been sitting in a basement for twenty years. I unfastened the handle and removed it to get at the wood where it attached and found, in the cavity, a nest of about a thousand earwigs, in one churning, revolting, cluster-fucking mass. That was fun.

The biggest dragonflies I ever saw were the ones they had in Taiwan. We kids would pretend they were MIGs. They were probably only 4 inches long, that's all. At two inches, the mosquitoes were more impressive, because you don't expect as much from a mosquito.

Mark p.s.2 said...

I live along the StLawrence river suburbs of Montreal and I have seen large dragonflies as well.
One time I swatted what I though was a fly on my leg, and my hand kind of bounced off, I look down in puzzlement and found this huge dragonfly. He/she flew off while I went WTF and looked at my hand.