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Tuesday 12 April 2011

Who Brought Them to North America? I'm mad at you.

 I don't know if you have America's newest pest in your neck of the neighborhood, but here in mine, the Stink Bug is invasive.  They were around last summer but apparently spent the winter renewing their vow to take over the world and have come out strong already this spring.
  At first glance, they're not that bad.  They don't sting or carry malaria or eat the wood boards holding up your house.  Unlike ticks they don't cohort with deer and burrow under your skin and make your joints ache nor are they rude enough to steal your food or leave their excrement on the walls.  
  They do have an odor - hence their name.  But truthfully the smell isn't really all that "stink".  It's not like a "your kid stepped in a pile of dog poop" smell.  It's more like a strange mixture of mint toothpaste, hair dye and toilet bowel cleaner and they only employ their stink weapon when threatened, which unfortunately around here is often.
  They seem to have an extremely strong exoskeleton as evidenced by the fact that when you flick them as hard as you can and their body makes that satisfying crack when it hits the wall, they pause only a moment before they brush it off and walk away.  And they're so stupid/docile that they don't have the sense to run from you.
  So what is it that makes people hate them so intensely?  Could it be that horrific prehistoric body?  If you enlarged them by about 1,000 percent you could easily superimpose them into a Jurassic Park scene and have people screaming and running from them as they advanced and devoured everything in their path.  But could ugliness alone make them detestable?
  Maybe it's their sheer number.  Apparently the only social networking the stink bug engages in is not on facebook but in the bedroom.  If you have one today, you will have 100 tomorrow.
  I really don't know what I hate so much about this bug but I do.  Really.  Do you?
  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Were you writing lesson plans while writing this? I am picturing a stink bug asking Vanna White to buy a vowel...

Alexandra Rose said...

They are pesky critters. I wouldn't mind if all they did was cluster in windows or corners of my walls... while that would be gross, it would certainly be more tolerable than having them crawl up my legs in the middle of the night, or fall from the ceiling into my dinner plate, or fly straight into my face during on of their flying frenzies, or crawling up my glass of water and spraying their stink on the rim so the rest of my water is stink bug flavored.

They are the king of pests. And I hope siblings do not take lessons from these guys.