There are bugs in my house occasionally. They are very small, reddish, Box Elder beetle-looking bugs, so really not a bad bug as far as bugs go. All the same, I do not care for bugs. For some reason bugs seem to enjoy bathrooms. I meet them there often. As a preventive measure, I now do a visual inspection of my bathtub and shower curtain every morning before undressing and showering. There's nothing worse than meeting a bug foe while naked.
Compared to the bugs at my parents' house, the bugs at my house are NOTHING. In fact, no bug in Utah is as bad as a Southern bug. I'm about to put in a link to the bug I hate most in the world, but I'm warning you first. Seriously, DO NOT click on the link unless you can really, truly handle bugs, because the bug I'm about to unveil is seriously wicked nasty. Okay, if you want to, you can look at a cave cricket. They are my worst enemies. They live in my parents' garage and they come creeping into the house at night and one time there was one in the shower with me and I had to jump out and scream for my ever-loving mother to come destroy it. But they're hard to destroy. They JUMP.
Madame 4-yr-old on the other hand loves all animals ("except when they eat each other"). Madame 3-yr-old likes most animals, but she used to dislike "biting dogs."
MBC: How can you tell which dogs are biting dogs?
Madame: They have teeth.
For fun, Madame 4-yr-old likes to play with a set of cards featuring pictures of bugs and birds. Last year she made me play with her. Madame was good at the game (which involved turning over a card and identifying the animal and then letting the other person turn over a card), because she loves animals. I was good at the game because I can read the labels on the cards. I had told Madame about how I dislike bugs and how they sick me out and how I make Mom take them away, and Madame remembers EVERYTHING. So, Madame turns over a card and it's a bug. She pats me on the knee and says, "I know you don't care for bugs, Aunt. Try to be brave of bugs like me, though."
3 comments:
On bravery....
Just this Monday, I urged Madame 4-yr-old to come inside for dinner from our backyard. She indicated her willingness to comply ... " but after just a little while more," she said.
"Why not now?" (the perennial parental query)
She stood this entire time with her back to me, face-to-face with a monstrous swamp of mud and goo in our unfinished yard. She was in fact standing on a small precipice--small to me--enormous to her, with toes in flip-flops dangling just 18-inches above gooey, gooey slime and water.
"Because I'm practicing being brave," was her barely audible, almost phlegmatic answer.
During this entire exchange, she nary looked at me once, but kept her eyes fixed on the swamp. I didn't have the reserves at the moment to pry her away from her practice, so I just left her standing there, absolutely still, eyes on swamp. I tremble to think how her braveness might have shattered, if anything like a cave cricket had emerged from the swamp.
By the way, M-4-yr-old had asked me only a few minutes earlier, "Do we have sea eels around here?" Imagine the shape and scope of her practice session had my answer been yes.
Marmot Dad
Given their limited vision, cave crickets will often jump towards any perceived threat in an attempt to frighten it away. Their large hind legs allow them to jump high and far.
Yeah, see, I don't have a huge bug phobia, but I would not enjoy that.
The Provo apartment we lived in when Grace was born was infested with box elder bugs. They're not too bad on their own, but when they and 4.5 million of their closest friends crawl all over your window day and night . . . shudder! They disgust me.
And bugs are the number two reason why I will never live in the South. (Alligators are number one. And you don't need to tell me that Tennessee is not infested with alligators. I am aware. However it is close enough to Florida to warrant extreme caution.)
Post a Comment