Buggery

I don't like bugs, though not entomophobically (yes, I looked up that word and, contrary to popular belief, I just don't insert large fancy words into my text to be priggish—well, maybe sometimes, I suppose).  I just have your regular run-of-the-mill distaste for insects.  I grew up in the South and admit that I love the romantic serenade of the native 17-year cicada on warm humid nights; that dulcet chirp heard just beyond the tree line as I sat on my mother's side porch. The sound is magnificent—as long as you keep the monstrous insects away from me. What I truly dislike are those pesky bugs that chase you from the room or seemingly fly into your face just for fun. Those carpenter bees and dirt daubers. Those creepy crawlers and winged-dooglers. Insects whose names could only be more sinister if conjured up by Boris Karloff himself.  Those are the ones that make me leap in horror. Of course, I've never done well with creatures with half a dozen legs or more. I was afraid of them as a youngster. I was afraid. I was very afraid watching the remake of The Fly. To this day I can't look at the E.G. Marshall segment of Creepshow.  Thirty years later, I continue to have nightmares thinking of his body being engulfed by insects. #wakesupscreaming

Upon signing the lease of my first New York City apartment (a decent fourth-floor walkup in the Bronx), I kept hearing the voice of Florence Johnston, the Jefferson's maid, sass her famous line "In my building the roaches are so big that when you step on them the crunch drowns out the television!" Unfortunately, I had the displeasure of meeting one of those roaches. I was coming out of the bathroom heading into the living room when I saw my partner's eye widen to the size of Rhode Island. I knew immediately it was some massive insect he had spied, so I literally jumped several feet almost landing on the coffee table. He didn't have to say anything; the blaze of his telescoping eyes told it all.  So I looked over my shoulder and squealed. There, affixed to the ceiling above where my head had just been, was the largest, longest, fattest, menacing cockroach ever recorded on earth. I grabbed a broom and he grabbed the Raid.  As we jockeyed for the best position to make a speedy exit we kept bandying "You spray it and I'll hit it!" and "You hit it and I'll spray!" animated back-and-forth Chip 'n' Dale style.  I finally pushed him forward.  Gripping the can of Raid, he pressed the actuator.

"Sssssssssssss!" A white mist filled the space in front of the bathroom. I was ready with the broom when....  dear Christ Almighty the monster took flight!

I think I blacked out—one of those blind flight-or-fight rages, perhaps. The next thing I remember, I was standing in the kitchen with a jaggedly broken broom handle. We had killed the ginormous roach, but a framed wall photo, several items on a shelf and a lamp on the bedroom nightstand were all collateral damage. Apparently, I started smashing the bug violently and didn't stop until I snapped the poor broom in two. I was told that the dead husk of the creature flew upwards and I charged into the kitchen shrieking in terror. Thankfully, that was the last roach I had to battle in my twenty-year residence in New York City.

However, in May of this year, I returned to North Carolina to take care of my mother who happens to have dementia. That's when the current onslaught began:  the hordes of Insectus Attackio!  For the past few months I've been assaulted by crickets, silverfish, grasshoppers, centipedes, granddaddy long-legs, ants, gnats, flies!  And then, after all that, there came the most merciless and unrelenting soldier of them all:  The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug!—a grotesque brown-armored behemoth that landed on our shores in the belly of a Chinese cargo ship several years ago. With no predators in North America, this beast has reproduced by the gazillions.  Up and down the eastern seaboard homeowners have waged a war with this creature as it relentlessly invades and infests dwellings and other structures. The stink bug is almost like some CGI creation of David Cronenburg. They have no mouths and they resist insecticide. Every time I looked around they were buzzing and dive-bombing towards me in my bedroom.  But I was no simple neophyte just arriving from the big city; I was armed with Google and an eco-friendly idea that there must be something, somewhere in nature, to at least repel these pests.  So with a spray bottle of garlic water, mint and dried chrysanthemum leaves, along with the help of a vacuum cleaner, duct-tape and caulk, I was prepared for battle.

"To fight the bug, we must understand the bug!" Sky Marshall Tehat Meru's rallying cry in Starship Troopers urged me on toward the fray.

Are you ready to rummmmmmmmmmbbbbbbblllllllllllleeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

Now on to tonight's main event.

In this corner.... wearing all-slimmerizing-black by Ralph Lauren, Daaaaarrrryl T Sturgis!  "Ahhhhhhhr" (insert cheers from the crowd).  And in this corner.....wearing a stench-emitting-exoskeleton, the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug! (Booooooo!!! Hiiiiissss!!!).  -- I would tell you to throw tomatoes but the evil little ass-hats eat them and love them.

You can't really battle away stink bugs. Like other insects, in order to beat them you have to prevent them from entering your home altogether. Thus, I was in the process of sealing the windows, especially the area around my mother's bedroom air conditioner.  She had noticed a few bugs at the top of her drapes (the little buggers love to hide in the folds of curtains), so I retrieved the vacuum and headed up the ladder. I was poised with the hose in hand ready to suction the bugs to their doom, when my mother—who's starting to become less coordinated because of her progressing disease—decided she wanted to help.  So what does she do?  She runs over, grabs the curtain and starts flapping it.  I'm now teetering on the top of a ladder with vacuum in hand and a flying squadron of stink bugs escaping the curtains. My field of vision was obscured by the buzzing gross little devils.  I'm pretty sure I yelled like Tippi Hedren in that famous scene from Hitchcock's classic, The Birds—where the sadistic director forced her to endure over 40 takes of real birds scratching and pecking at her. I swatted and flailed my arms.  My startled mother fell backwards onto the bed (thankfully), but in doing so, she brought the curtains down on top of me. Now I was trapped in lavender-colored cotton, a corner of which the vacuum clumsily sucked in. My mother goes on the offensive and starts stepping on the bugs to crush them. She didn't realize that the reason they're called "stink bugs" is because when smashed they emit a terribly foul odor.

Trying to untangle myself and, as if in some scary scene from Poltergeist, I'm shouting over the roar of the vacuum cleaner,  "Don't crush them! They'll stink! The smell will attract more bugs!"

"Whatcha say?!  Can't hear you!!!" she shouted while intensifying her stomping.

"DON'T CRUSH THEM!" I yelled over the continuing noise of the vacuum.

"PUT THEM IN A CUP?!?!"

"NO!! I SAID DON'T CRUSH THEM!"

"YOU WANT SOME?!" she yelled quizzically. "YOU WANT THE BUGS IN A CUP?!?!"

Sigh. I had enough. I threw the curtain off of me and tried to power off the vacuum with my toe to no avail.  I asked her to toss me a black plastic trash bag and I stuffed the curtain, vacuum cleaner and bugs all into it. I yanked the cord from the wall, tied it around the bag and stormed out into the night towards the trash bin cursing along the way. I waited a few minutes to allow the rage and repulsion to burn off.  I dusted myself off and quivered at the thought that some of those bugs probably found their way into my pants.  I went back in the house. My mother was now sitting comfortably in the den in her recliner watching television, volume up, as usual, to 161 decibels.  Maury was shouting from the screen "You ARE the father!" with ear-shattering cheers and catcalls from his audience.  I looked at her, feeling like a dejected warrior.

"Mama, I'm sorry. I seemed to not be able to keep the stink bugs out the house," I said with puppy dog eyes.

She sipped her glass of cold Pepsi and looked at me curiously. "What stink bugs?"

"Exactly," I chuckled.

Oh crap. There's one now on the ceiling! Dammit, the vacuum's in the trash bin. Where's a good broom when you need it?