Rule #1: Bugs Belong Outside

My husband thought it would be a good idea to bring a salamander into the living room. I admit I have always thought salamanders to be cute little buggers, but not inside where they could leap from a person’s hand to dart under the living room furniture where they would be lost forever until turning up on the bed pillow all snuggly and curled up next to one’s head. I mean really, there are limits and rules about where one can handle these types of creatures. At least there should be.















I would like to say a word about the dreaded stinkbug. It seems that as soon as the weather begins to get warm they manage to find their way into the house. There haven’t been many yet this spring; the new windows appear to be reducing the number that actually penetrates the living space. While my girlfriend and I were at the park the other day she was telling me a story about how she woke up one night to find a stinkbug pattering around on her lips. She thought it was a hair and when she went to brush it away she realized, to her horror, that it was not a hair.

As I was getting myself ready for bed on Friday night I came across one of the cats staring at the moulding near the bathroom door. This posture typically means that he is watching a bug; sure enough, I followed his gaze right to the culprit. I grabbed a piece of toilet paper and proceeded to seize the stinkbug. Alas, my bit of toilet paper was not large enough and the imposter flitted away before I could acquire a good death-grip.

I searched and looked and even squinted in every corner looking for that stinkbug. I even tried to get the cat re-interested in the game, but he quit on me and went to lie down in a nice comfy chair somewhere. At the urging of my bladder I finally gave up and went into the bathroom. Whilst enjoying the liberty of being able to relieve myself without an audience, I felt a string tickling my right upper arm.

First, I remembered that my shirt had no loose strings, and very quickly after that I recalled my friend relating the feel of a stinkbug’s feet to a tickly hair. I cringed and slowly turned my head to peak down at my arm. Of course I did what any in-control person would do when discovering a disgusting bug crawling on their body: I flicked that thing off my arm to land wherever it may.

Thankfully, it landed in the white cast-iron tub so I didn’t have to go back to my fruitless search. I’m sure it got quite a laugh sitting on my shoulder while I searched high and low for its new perch. If you live in a house prone to stinkbugs beware the crawling tickly hair on your face that wakes you up in the middle of the night, it might try to crawl up your nose.