tell a story about bugs

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I got bugs in my room
Bugs in my bed
Bugs in my ears
Their eggs in my head

Every day I spot at least one praying mantis in my gardens! Mostly if it seems a bigger one is stalking a smaller one, I move one of them to a different row. It's great, though. Eat all the bugs, my pretties!!

Just not each other.

apparently ticks secrete a chemical that makes it so you can't feel them when they burrow into your skin.

that's generous of them

I had moved back into my mom's house for like the third time during my 20s. Not sure how high I was, but I managed to walk all the way into the house, reaching my bedroom before noticing the signature papery, fluttery sound of a palmetto bug erupting near my ear.

He rode in on my neck. An unnoticed two inch flying cockroach! I windmilled every way possible and he disappeared behind a framed picture on the wall. I tore it off the wall, determined to kill him. (After all I was upset; its fate was sealed.) He fluttered toward me once again then landed on the floor where he proceeded to dive straight down into the carpeting.

A five minute stoned vigil turned up nothing. He never reemerged.

There was an old lady
Who swallowed a fly
I don't know why
She swallowed a fly
That's ok
And here's why

i went to a fancy german restaurant and they came out with my food with a dead fried fly on my plate!

Are you sure it wasn't the head of David Geffen

you know those amber twirls of fly tape? one time i wandered into a pair of them, richly encrusted with years' worth of crispy little fly and moth corpses. they got stuck in my hair. i died. i am still dead to this day. i am dying again right now thinking about it. it was goddamn revolting.

my mom was a serial slug killer. every summer they'd take over the garden and she would have a new way of slaughtering them. one year it was little dishes of beer for them to drown in. another year she'd strew potato slices about the yard at night and salt the slugs she found feasting in the morning. our last big slug year she discovered her favorite method, going out with a bamboo skewer and straight up kebabing them. she kept the skewers as trophies all summer and showed them off proudly to visitors.

drought now, fewer slugs.

once upon a time, the queen of all the insects needed a new consort because she had beheaded the last one (and the one before that, and the one before that). she decided she would hold a royal ball and invite all of insectdom's most eligible bachelors so she could choose her next partner. but when the day arrived, no one came to the palace! (this was not because of the beheadings; the royal stationer had simply put the wrong date down on the invitations) the queen was so furious she tore herself into pieces. the next day, all the guests arrived to find the palace's great ballroom spattered with gobs of queen, the air rank with her fury and frustrated hormones. slaves to their biological imperative, the guests all began to mate with whatever scraps of their ruler they could reach, and then with each other's gore-streaked bodies, resulting in a squirming seething mass of necrophiliac gay bug orgy, and that's where ted cruz comes from.

irl lol!

I recently took my kid to a baseball tournament in Omaha, NE. He's also a skateboarder, so we brought his board along and found a free outdoor skate park. Graffitied in magic marker on one of the park benches was the entire opening monologue to "Bee Movie."

According to all known laws
of aviation,
there is no way a bee
should be able to fly.
Its wings are too small to get
its fat little body off the ground.
The bee, of course, flies anyway
because bees don't care
what humans think is impossible.
Yellow, black. Yellow, black.
Yellow, black. Yellow, black.
Ooh, black and yellow!
Let's shake it up a little.
Barry! Breakfast is ready!

And it carries on from there. It must have taken the vandal an hour to write.

In sixth grade science class, there were two outdoorsy projects: one to press, collect, and identify 50 different wildflowers in a photo album. 50 entries got you an A. The other was to collect, identify and pin insects to a board or a piece of styrofoam. 50 of these got you an A. It was a gruesome task as you had to kill them in a homemade kill jar...balls of ammonia-soaked cotton underneath a screen inside. Needless to say I was having trouble finishing the task in time. Luckily I had an uncle only 4 years my senior who still had his collection from the same teacher's class; he passed along some of his more majestic bugs: a Tiger Swallowtail, a Luna Moth, a Rhinoceros Beetle. When the due date arrived, a girl (Christine!) walked her bug collection into school with a couple still-living caterpillars wriggling under the pin. She made her deadline, and now I'm a buddhist monk.

Last Sunday at the beach I noticed a bee about to drown in the water, so I picked it up and I brought it back to a safe place but when I tried to get it off my hand it stung me, and thus died.

these boxelder bugs, man. gets a lil chilly outside and they just barge right in. go for a drink, there’s a boxelder bug on yr cup. wth, bug, you know you’re not gonna slake my thirst! o dag, is that a slowass roach in the kitchen? no it’s just another of these dopes bumbling up the wall like an entire goofus. we must’ve caught near fifty by now, enough to populate a reasonably functional bug village. or maybe it’s like the same 5 bugs we’ve caught 10x and each time they’re wearing tiny disguises so we don’t recognize them. we keep putting them out and they keep coming in again, i don’t know how i can communicate their unwelcomeness any more clearly without becoming churlish!! bugs!!

Bees like ham.

Well, at least one bee. I was picnicking. A bee landed on my sub, spent a good 10 or 15 seconds biting out a small circle of ham, and flew away with it.

a bee invited herself to your picnic, that’s quite charming!

o wait, carnivorous bees, that might be bad

My cousin tells of having a spider walk across his kitchen counter that was so big he heard it before he saw it.

I no like the big bugs. A cicada flew into my car at a stop light, and I somehow managed to drive home in the fetal position.

spiders are so rad! as long as they are spiders of modest size. saw a leetle speeder sipping from a water drop on the counter once, and when my face got too close it reared up on its hind legs at me! it was probably hollering the spider equivalent of “RAAAARGH! BACK OFF, GIANT FACE!” a lot braver than i would be in that situation.

i know cicadas are harmless but they look murdery. those claws, come on.

a few months ago i thought a roach fell on me in the pantry but it was just a shadow or something. nevertheless my body was already in fight-or-flight mode and i stumbled backward several steps in what must have appeared to be an awkward tap dance and crash-landed into the kitchen trash can. my fiance, who witnessed this, was silent for a few seconds and then we both just started laughing hysterically. something like this happens fairly often...i'm glad to be a source of amusement for her.

At work one day I pulled a staple out of some papers and tossed it toward the trash can, when it suddenly stopped in midair, hooked on an invisible filament of spider silk. An adorably tiny spider walked out to examine his catch, found it inedible, and pushed it off the web into the trash below.

when i was a teenager visiting my grandparents in az i was swimming late one night, went under water to hold my breath as long as i could, came up for a huge inhale of air and a massive moth came flying into my mouth at that exact moment and lodged right in my throat, i could feel it flapping around and i had no choice but to gulp a bunch of pool water, likely a couple liters, i still think about that feeling in my throat sometimes.

WASP IN MY FUCKING HAIR

Shortly after I got my own place for the first time some 16 years ago, I discovered one of the lights on the ceiling didn't work. I changed the bulb, checking the wiring in the fitting, yet all to no avail so I called out an electrician. He went over to the switch on the wall, unscrewed it, and out fell the husks of 60 or so dead houseflies onto the carpet.

I surmised that a fly must have inserted its ovipositor through the tiny gap between the switch's plastic casing in the wall, laid its eggs in there, which hatched into maggots which, deprived of other food, had turned to cannibalism, pupated, then pupated, turned into flies which themselves starved and died.

A spider on my bathroom ceiling has not moved from the same spot for the past few hours. Perhaps it is sleeping.

When I was at my parents' house, I killed a spider high up on the wall for my niece and nephew (so that they could go to sleep) but don't feel quite as ambitious or absolutist now.

One summer at camp we were playing frisbee or something, and it flew into the woods. I went stomping after it and stepped on a yellowjacket nest. As soon as I realized what was going on, that I was getting stung over and over again, I raced out of there as fast as I could ... right through a thorny berry patch. I ended up getting stung 17 or 18 times, and it took forever to get all the thorns out.

Stepped on a yellowjacket nest myself at scout camp. We were practicing off-trail search & rescue sweeps through the woods when my foot came down on one. They came out to greet me all at once. My immediate reaction was to yell, "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Holy shit!" while whipping my shirt off. One of the scoutmasters offered a stern disapprobation of my language before he realized what was going on. One of my friends got to walk me back to the nurses station, where they treated me for over 20 stings (not trying to outdo you, JiC!)

Yesterday, my wife brought container plants from outside in preparation for autumn. She likes to move some inside and outside with the change of season. She trudged past me with a beautiful blue ceramic pot of parsley hoisted over her shoulder. From the other room, I heard a cry "Help me! Help me! Oh my god, help me!" I ran in there to find her stripping down to her skivvies. The pot had become a nest for some sort of small, biting ants and they had marched out of the drain hole and started attacking her. I took the pot outside and poured a mixture of water and diatomaceous earth through it. Hopefully, this will kill off the ants and render it safe to bring inside soon.

I have positive bug stories too. Will try to come back later with some stories not about biting and stinging.

I love insects.

I too have disturbed a yellow jacket nest and run crying all the way back to the house from the woods, when I was a kid. A few got inside my shirt, so they were stinging me even while I was running.

On a more positive note, the two yards next to our backyard are huge firefly gathering places during June and July, just gorgeous.

A month ago, I was taking part in an observation outing at a natural resources conservation area near my home. This spot was/is under threat by a proposed golf course expansion, so a group of us were out there trying to catalog as much natural life as we could to demonstrate the biodiversity of the area.

I do most of my insect observations directly in my neighborhood, with occasional sightings while out on trips elsewhere. In 2021, I observed over 300 species of insects, almost all of them in the few blocks from my home where I walk my dog. That's so many animals sharing such a relatively small space!

Anyway, I was hoping to find something new on this adventure. Some kind of pretty beetle or a different type of wasp or something. And I did find those things! But as I stared into the bushes, my eyes focused in on these two absolute dudes chilling out on some leaves.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/127666068

Fifth-instar nymphs of the North American Wheel Bug. The North American Wheel Bug isn't rare, per se, but I had never seen them. They are the largest terrestrial true bugs in North America (Giant Water Bugs are bigger, I guess). They pack a mean bite, whether you're a human or another insect. They're good to have in your garden for preying on pests.

It's a terrible picture and doesn't do them justice, but sitting there, they appeared to me like two young lions gazing out over the savannah. Regal and lethal and calm.

After I got home, I googled up their wikipedia page and found this quote.

"They're the lion or the eagle of your food web," Dr. Michael J. Raupp, an entomologist at the University of Maryland, notes. "They sit on top. When you have these big, ferocious predators in your landscape, that tells me that this is a very healthy landscape, because all these other levels in your food web are intact."

Is this a story about bugs? I don't know. It feels like more of just an observation, but I guess I wanted to communicate how much I was affected by their presence.

https://static.inaturalist.org/photos/216764339/original.jpeg

The spider on the bathroom ceiling was dead. It fell with the aid of a step ladder and a long ruler.

I think insects in general would be more frightening with better vision. They could be less disturbing with less territoriality. Should this apply in the future with climate change?

When I was in third grade, I went to Korea for summer vacation and my cousins caught dragonflies in nets but I

think children are no longer used to them.

"they appeared to me like two young lions gazing out over the savannah. Regal and lethal and calm."

That's the second time Ilxor has made me think of Visconti's The Leopard. It's a classic film in which Burt Lancaster is a posh Italian landowner who realises that his society is nearing its end, so he tries to ingratiate himself with the coming wave of the petty borgose. Petty borgswah. Borgwash.

I can imagine those bugs trying to do the same thing. Dressing up in suits and swinging their arms back and forth when they walk, just like a human. Learning how to eat human food without pre-digesting it. Getting married and having a job. Living in a ticky-tack house. Driving a car, with a manual gearbox. But as in The Leopard no matter how hard they try they will always be spiders.

Like in that film, Leo the Last. No matter how much Burt Lancaster tries, he will always be Marcello Mastroianni.

You know, Billie Whitelaw was really nice. Imagine how much more better she would have been if she was a spider.

update: SPIDER IN MY FUCKING HAIR AAAAAAH

and then i instinctively whapped at it, right the fuck next to my face, with the hand holding the gardening shears

by the grace of arachne i managed not to shear my face but did get the shears tangled in my hair with the spider

feels like nature is trying to tell me something, possibly about my hair

oh jeez! that's how the spiders get you. they wait til you're holding sharp blades, and then they go for the face.

i try to keep the advice "spiders are our friends!" in mind when i have a close-up encounter, but they do give me the heeby-jeebies

i feel like a have a couple bug stories. i'm gonna make some coffee and try to remember one

I have this weird, itchy mark on the inside of my left elbow that looks like the bite of a huge spider. I keep thinking it's necrotizing.

This has been a banner year for mosquito bites. I think I may have some permanent scarring on my legs.

Mosquitos were bonkers around here during the second half of the summer. Deer flies were a little over the top as well. My pet theory is that more pesky insects were able to survive last year due to the 17-year cicadas, which made easy targets and filling meals for local bird populations.

guess how many ants there are?

TWENTY QUADRILLLION

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/19/ants-population-20-quadrillion/

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsonstappedout/images/2/2a/Hail_Ants_in_Episode.jpg

yeah so the weather got cold again and the box elder bugs have returned and i surrender. you win, box elder bugs, come on inside. but is that enough for them, of course not, because i have offended an obscure greek god of bugs or hair or bugs-and-hair and now they buzz around while i'm doing stuff at home and land, yes, IN MY FUCKING HAIR as is tradition. and i have just given up doing anything about it. they don't sting, they don't bite, they are probably pooping on me but who the heck gives a darn, so i go about my business with a bug in my hair until it bumbles off to go be an idiot somewhere else. i can take a fucking hint, eventually! i'm meant to be the radagast of bugs. fine. cool. great. i'll start wearing a dumb little fascinator of a tiny birdhouse and put a neon sign on it that says "come on in you buggy schmucks, go ahead and make yourselves comfortable since i know you will anyway and this is just my life now" fucking bugs, fuck.

i wonder if it's possible to train these bugs? if you could coordinate with them you might become very powerful!

these bugs is ungovernable, sweet krrl. howsoever i may plead or cajole, they will not be swayed from their predetermined course of action, no matter how wild, no matter how dumb. "box elder bug, i will release you from the light fixture you have trapped yourself in but please try to stop getting stuck in there" an hour later guess who's bopping their dopey head against the light? surprise it's both the bug and me because it's too donkeybrained to stay away and i'm too squeamish to let the fool thing die in the weird bright hell inside the ceiling light. "no, box elder bug, you must stay away from the drain while the water is running!" i call out in dismay. saith the box elder bug: "i'm having an adventure whee gurgle gurgle blub blub [drowning bug sounds]"

My daughter has come a long way with her relationship to arthropods. Just a few years ago, we were hiking through the woods and came across an area that was swarming with daddy long legs (opiliones/harvestmen) and I had to give her a piggyback ride as she cowered in fright. Last week, she told me that she came to the rescue of a daddy long legs, which her friends were freaking out about at school. She picked it up and carried it over to the woods, which earned her the nickname spider-girl. Opiliones are NOT spiders, but that's nerd shit for another day.

Anyway, we were taking a hike in the woods on Sunday when she came across a yellowjacket with a broken wing. Following her caring instincts, she reached down and let it crawl onto her hand. My eyes bugged out of my head and my jaw clenched. She interacts with honeybees, bumblebees, and carpenter bees all the time, reaching down to pet them as they gather pollen from flowers. But she has never in her life been stung. I'm glad for this. My childhood fear of arthropods had been incited at a young age when I was bitten by a cute little field cricket I had picked up and it took me years to get over that. So when she reached for the yellowjacket, I was sure that this was it. "Here we go, bring on the waterworks and get ready to throw her over your shoulder to hike back up that hill," I thought. She pretty much shuts down when she even skins a knee or whatever. But it was not to be. She let the wasp crawl around on her hand for a minute and deposited it safely on a tree trunk, out of the way of crushing foot traffic. She knows that she risks being stung, and she hears me when I say that it's a pain so intense that she can't comprehend it without knowing it, but she is still be a friend to the bugs.

So when she reached for the yellowjacket

you need to rewire your child lol

naw it's cute, the world needs more entomologists

Yeah, I'm pretty impressed by her.

As a side notes, this isn't an observation of mine, but I just this moment learned that there is a moth whose common name is Psychedelic Jones

https://bugguide.net/images/cache/ERQ/H4R/ERQH4R0HSRDLYLNLLZOLKZDL7ZCLXZVLGRSH6RDLERTL7ZBLQZKHXZLHSZ2LFL6LFLELZZNLZZTLZZ2LMRJZERYZZZ2L.jpg

Here goes my kid, tempting fate again.

https://i.imgur.com/JM4Efm0.png

As we were walking out the door to the bus stop this morning, she saw this bumblebee on some flowers on our steps. It was moving slowly; temperatures were around 60°F. I suggested that she go over and pet it to warm it up. Instead, she put her finger out and it climbed right on, hugging her finger tightly. I was worried that it would still be on there when the school bus arrived, so I tried to coax it off onto a stick. It started to look a little agitated while I was doing this, but the transfer was managed successfully. Then it crawled from the stick onto my finger, and I'm much more scared of getting stung. The school bus arrived and my daughter left, leaving just me and the bee, clinging tightly to my finger. It shook its wings off and started moving up my arm. Please don't try to climb up my sleeve. It gained speed and took off, flying straight at my face before taking a hard left and buzzing off into the morning air.