Story Weekend: Bugs
It’s Story Weekend! (It’s also the official release date of The Good Father in the UK and Australia).
I was thinking of a topic for story weekend when, outside my window, I noticed the first firefly of the season. First firefly on June 1st. How perfect! So that’s your theme for this weekend: bugs!
If you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve been contributing. As always, there are a few “rules”:
▪ The story must be true
▪ Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge.
Have fun!
Two words: Fire Ants.
I’m from Ohio and had no idea about these buggers. Well I knew OF them but had no clue about how awful they are and that they are pretty much everywhere in New Orleans. During a photo shoot I managed to stumble into a hill that had been flattened by a tropical storm the day before and was the new owner of about 50-60 bites all over my legs. I’m still scared to step a foot in the grass down there after that misadventure!
I don’t blame you. I’m glad you survived. Yikes.
Ireland has no bugs per say of the flying variety but I have met a few folks who have bugged me from time to time but I digress. In Canada we have monster mosquitos who feast on your flesh until they are sated and then die. Serves them right I say. When my Irish partner spent his first summer there with me, we were lying in bed and we could hear the drone of a mosquito as he fine tuned his GPS. After years of being sampled, selected, and eaten alive by mosquitos I have developed an immunity. Not so my man. The poor man spent the night engaged in the futile dance of slapping, cursing and mopping up his own blood. He was not amused. As for me I like bugs. I like the industriousness of them maybe because I sometimes see myself in them. They know they have a job to do that is genetically coded into them before birth, they can be annnoying when someone interfers with their chosen task being completed and they like hanging out together in a group. Most of all, they are small yet mighty and are just trying to get on with their life the only way that they know how to. A life lesson for us all.
no flying bugs? I’m moving to Ireland!
Diane. I know a place that you can stay for free:}
🙂
This happened just today . . .
Just ready to leave the house and put a scarf around my neck before checking how I looked in the mirror. Adjusting my hair I felt movement at my neck and looked down to see a massive house spider crawl,out of my scarf, must have been hiding in there overnight. It was huge and I screamed, tried to pull the scarf off but it was too secure, screamed and screamed and flapped it off with my hand. My husband and daughter ran in to see me dancing around the living room and trying to pull myself free of the scarf, poor spider running for cover under the sofa. It took me a good while to calm down, but then I couldn’t stop laughing …. So funny!
ugh, Tracy! We live in the woods, sharing our home with two dogs and what seems like thousands of spiders. I check every item of clothing before I put it on. I bet you will from now on, too.
I’m always conflicted about bugs. Are they sentient beings? Must I trap them and send them out the window? And if slugs are bugs does my getting angry at them and salting them constitute murder. Ah such existential musings. So I discover I have a routine for every bug. If I can’t get it outside, I flush (stinkbugs). If I can’t trap something (especially mosquitoes) I squish them. If they really give me the creeps (spiders) I papertowel them and dispose of them. My karma is slowly deteriorating. Well, I guess I’d better squash the thing that keeps flying across my monitor. You say that’s a different kind of bug?
lol, Christina!
Bugs…any bug that is inside my home…is trespassing, so squashing them is the only thing left to do. Bugs that live outside are good. I leave them alone as long as they are not biting me or drinking my blood. I am a professional Faller, so I have to look to the ground when I walk…Or else I will be rolling on the ground. I have spotted some of the most beautiful and unique “Bugs”…My husband just shakes his head when he sees that I am entertaining a creepy crawly that is on the ground. My granddaughter caught me off guard the other day and asked me “Grandma, What is your favorite bug?” I was like “uh hmmm…I don’t know. What is yours?” Butterflies…..Oh It took me by surprise…Of course …Butterflies are beautiful…. Who doesn’t love butterflies? There is one orange and black striped fuzzy bug that looks like a spider…I don’t know what it is called, but it is sort of awesome also…
Glad to know I’m not the only person who watches the ground as she walks. Too many spills. ANd how about ladybugs? I don’t even think of them as bugs. They’re too cute.
I love those too…and the other day when I was mowing, there were everywhere, I kept saying run little Lady Bugs before I run over you,,,lol Yes, My husband tells me I am a nerd..
Bugs in beds! My memory was sleeping at topsail for 3 days and then shaking out my pillowcase. I had been living with a lovely bug. In the meantime Diane and I must have looked like idiots the day before to the dogs as we chased a couple of bugs with spray and brooms!
A great memory with lots and lots of laughs. Thanks Diane. A terrific trip. This year’s trip is to Nashville and memphis. Wonder what I will see there?
Oh Kelly, you’re so kind not to mention that the bugs in question were cockro—er, Palmetto bugs. I check my pillow case every night at the beach now. And if you thought the bugs in Topsail were big, just wait till you get to Nashville!
Hendersonville NC is known for its seasonal swarms of ladybugs. Some folks, for whatever reason, cannot stand them and have their homes exterminated. Most residents enjoy them from the inside looking out, no matter their numbers. The few who manage to find themselves inside (and they do enter, sometimes in the double digits) are carefully caught and released outside. As Diane said, they’re so cute.
If you must have a swarm of bugs, they’re the bugs to have.
Every year when we open the lake house there are swarms of Lady Bugs in every corner of the house…I love them, but I am not crazy about the swarms in the house..lol
I ALWAYS look where I’m walking in SC, ever since I stepped on a FIRE AUNT HIILL that is! One rainy Sunday morning we were running late for mass so Grandpa dropped me off at the curb across the street with Seth in one hand and an umbrella in the other, while he went to park. Although I heard Seth say something, it was noisy and I was focused on waiting for a break in the traffic to safely escort him across.
During the readings my legs started to BURN! I was wearing slacks w/knee highs so I had NO IDEA what was REALLY HAPPENING and presumed I was having an allergic reaction. Then I had to sit through the homily with our priest standing RIGHT IN FRONT of me while I FRANTICALLY RUBBED my legs that were on FIRE.
As I was telling Nick and Fr Pat about it after mass our grandson piped up and said in an EXASPERATED TONE, “GRANDMA, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT, I TOLD YOU THAT YOU WERE STAINDING ON FIRE AUNTS WHEN GRANDPA DROPPED US OFF!”
OUCH..Bless your heart