Random Thought Train

I'm just sitting at my desk on a random Friday trying to balance my time between working and internetting when a random status update by my friend Nikki caught my attention. In it was a picture of the most vicious-looking centipede. I left my little 2 cents of a comment on how nasty it looked and how I've always been scared of centipedes and kept it moving. But then I started on a thought train.

"Why do centipedes scare you so much?"

"I don't know. They're gross. They have like, a gajillion legs."

"So? They cant hurt you. You are several thousand times larger than a centipede."

"Yeah, but they're just gross."

"SO they deserve immediate death because you perceive them as ugly?"

I couldn't really think of a retort to that. Now I do realize that they can bite and I don't think I would ever just allow one to keep on truckin' if I just happened to see him on my ceiling. But it got me thinking about my fear; most people's fear of bugs. I also had a traumatic experience once.

This is a palmetto bug. 

I'll eat your fucking kids.

They're found the southeastern region of the US and in tropical regions. They are RAMPANT in Savannah, Georgia. And also in Hyattsville, MD which is now mostly inhabited by hispanic folks, who I'm absolutely sure, unwittingly introduced these critters to the local ecosystem. They used to come up through our drains in our bathtub. Never while I was actually USING it, Thank God. But still, the horror. These bad-boys are quite adept at flying too, so you can imagine the panic upon encountering one.

On one such encounter- I'll never forget. Joe had left a greasy pan out on the stove overnight that we had cooked in. Anybody who's ever dealt with bugs knows thats a no-no but he didn't know any better. Anyway I walk in the kitchen an ^this guy whos about 2 inches long is just chillin in the pan, eating the greasy residue. I thought about it briefly. He was too busy eating to even notice me walk in so I thought of ways to handle this situation. I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't result in him panicking and flying/scurrying all over the place other than to kill him with fire. Literally, I put the pantop on and turned the fire all the way up. I don't know what I thought would happen. I just wanted him to die...

He just stood there for like 2 minutes, never moved, never showed any sign of discomfort and as soon as I thought, "Well shit, that didn't work." 

BOOM! White, frothy, pus-like fluid exploded from its ass and just started fuckin' sizzling...*shudder* it makes me cringe to think about it to this day! Needless to say, I threw away the pan and the top just because I would never be able to use it again without seeing that. SO YEAH. That happened.

Putting that one unfortunate experience aside though, why are we, as humans, so scared of these tiny, nasty little things. I mean they're ugly but by and large they can't hurt us and we're way more intimidating to them than they are to us. So where does this seemingly innate fear of insects come from? Were neanderthals and prehistoric men afraid of insects like us? Was it a learned behavior passed down through generations of men as a means to survival? Maybe. But it seems pretty silly these days in America* to be panicking about walking through a spider's web.

*(I cannot apply these views to the monsters that live abroad)

I'm just trying to be more mindful of things these days. A few weeks ago. I stepped on an ant while I was standing outside. Just because. She wasn't scaring me, crawling on me or anything. Just walking along and I, completely unprovoked, stepped on her and I felt bad. I took a life that can't be replaced for absolutely no reason. After that I gained a little more respect for tiny critters. When I saw a mouse chillin' in the corner of my boyfriend's room, I didn't freak out and neither did the mouse. He was kinda scared but I thought he was cute. And there are 2 really big and unruly crickets that live in the bathroom. I've just accepted that they live there, I see them sometimes in the morning, USUALLY they're calm and they don't move. But one morning I guess I walked in too fast and riled them up because they were just hopping all over the place so wildly that I  had to just back out for a minute and try again later.

I guess in all this I'm trying to say I have LESS fear concerning bugs. But I want to get to a level where I don't panic if a moth touches me. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes bugs need to die. But a once in a blue moon centipede that eats roaches and other household pests. Maybe, MAYBE he's worth saving and putting  outside. Just a thought.