Unfortunately for us, we are starting August, which I
consider the peak of insect season in the Lehigh Valley. In eastern
Pennsylvania, insects abound from early or mid-April until late October, but
the peak of bug season always seems to be the month of August, creating a very
buggy Musikfest in the heart of Bethlehem. Thus, you Fest-goers will be swatting
gnats and enduring various insects landing in your open containers of
intoxicating brews! The cicada killers come out in early August each year,
completing nature's array of scary, dirty, pesky insects. The hazy, hot, humid
weather of August, along with lush vegetation, make this month the perfect time
for avoiding ants, gnats, flies and spiders, as well as increasingly aggressive
stinging insects, such as bees, wasps and hornets. King August rules the insect
world, making it his personal domain!
The human distaste for insects is universal, as is our
deep emotional fear of them. Bugs are nature's intentional ugliness when it
comes to living things, just as the Brutalist style of architecture is
humanity's form of this. They definitely represent function over form and mar
the beauty of outdoor areas that we normally enjoy. Buggy places that we hate
often include beaches, marshes, forests, rivers, creeks and lakes. Any body of
water will attract numerous insects, including mosquitoes, especially in the
evening when we are enjoying outdoor recreational activities. Insects make our
backyards uninhabitable, ruin our picnics and scare the hell out of our
children. They can make the outdoors miserable during the summer months.
The obvious reality is that we are even more
uncomfortable with insects when battling them indoors. Bugs, including spiders,
often have to be killed so that they don't multiply or attack us in our sleep.
They land on our computer screens, interrupt our favorite TV shows and make a
blurry mess on our smart phones. Even as I was writing this, my computer screen
was attacked by this small gnat that just would not die! Then, when we do kill
insects, we have to deal with the splatty mess or the smell (as given off by
stink-bugs). This is an unpleasant task that makes many of us appreciate the
cooler weather.
To our continuing dismay, insects of all sorts invade our
homes and apartments, being the unwanted visitors that disgust us. Insects can
really get into things! They burrow themselves into our sheets, attack our
clothing and travel in our suitcases from one city to the next. When they
infest our homes, we are forced to spend our hard-earned money on
exterminators, even living out of hotel rooms until our homes are safe once
again. These things make for great episodes of TV sit-coms, but do not humor us
in real life!
Throughout the muggy summer season, we are constantly
confronted with gnats and small flies that land on us and pester us. The buggy
dusk periods of mid-to-late summer can make it hard to see when they get into
our eyes and land all over our skin. It can feel like they're nagging us to
death! Horse-flies are also irritating with their loud buzzing and frenetic
movement. Biting flies are the worst, giving a little prick of pain, and are very
numerous in Delaware, with its flat, marshy land and warm, humid climate.
Unlike stinging insects, pesky little bugs annoy the hell out of us every
summer, making us savor our air-conditioned living rooms.
Too often, of course, insects attack, spreading disease,
intense pain and serious danger. Insects can indeed be very dangerous,
especially in the case of mosquitoes carrying diseases. Bees, wasps and hornets
can also be very deadly when they attack in mass. Each year, according to the
CDC, almost 100 Americans are killed when they stumble upon bee hives or
hornets' nests. Spiders can also be poisonous, especially in humid, lush
southern states, including the Gulf Coast region. I've known people even in
Pennsylvania who have been bitten by poisonous spiders, requiring doctor visits
or trips to the emergency room.
Besides putting our lives in danger, insect attacks
torment our pets and put us through considerable pain and discomfort. Bugs make
our pets go mad, especially fleas, ticks, mosquitoes and flies. They will have
dogs chasing their tails and cats freaking out! Because our pets can't speak to
us, we don't realize what is bothering them when they are attacked by insects.
Even when bites and stings don't bring serious injury or death, bee and wasp
stings have us screaming in pain, while mosquito bites have us scratching for
days, interfering with our sleep on those sticky, uncomfortable summer nights.
Of course, many of us have a natural fear of spiders and
stinging insects. First, there is the element of surprise, often leading to
flinching or even spilling a cup of hot coffee, as I have done! Those at the
Wise Bean can attest to this! Often, our fears have their origin with being
stung as a child. These experiences stick with us because children have less
tolerance for pain and more sensitive skin. Unfortunately, for some people this
can create a phobia which immobilizes them for years. Most dangerous to us is
when stinging insects surprise us while we are driving or operating machinery.
As a veteran of many vivid nightmares, I can tell you
that many of our scariest, most disturbing dreams involve angry hordes of
insects. The natural fear of insects enters our subconscious minds, even giving
the feeling of intense pain to these nightmares. Movies play on this fear by
incorporating insects into important scenes or relating them to undesirable
characters, such as the Death's Head moth being symbolic of Buffalo Bill in
Silence of the Lambs. The scariest movie I've seen about insects is They
Nest, a 2000 film shown on TV about a new species of deadly, man-eating
cockroaches that devastate a coastal New England town, terrorizing a troubled
doctor and his lover. The movie was so grotesque that it gave me nightmares at
age 20, though I did enjoy watching it twice!
For our War on Bugs, many of you will suggest bug sprays,
nets or citronella candles, but I have yet to find a bug spray that actually
works. It's already too much effort for many of us to apply sunscreen, let
alone bug spray as well! I do use sunscreen, but I definitely don't want too
much gunk on me. As for citronella candles, we don't need to make our nefarious
activities or amorous adventures look even more mysterious or erotic, like some
arcane love cult!
Admit it: some insects are beautiful, cool or
interesting. Beetles and lady bugs are photographed and showcased for their
beauty, along with fireflies and butterflies. For children and adults alike,
fireflies add to the wonder of a starlit summer night. What kid hasn't run
around with a jar, collecting lightning bugs (as we call them in Pennsylvania)!
Kids sometimes even add eating ants to their initiation rituals for joining
their group of playmates during the long, boring days of summer vacation. As a
kid, though, I was more excited about bugs than my mom was! We love
butterflies, which inspire children's stories and add to the beauty of nature.
Overall, we hate insects with a passion, but they are a
necessary evil. We all acknowledge this: just think about how many of us enjoy
strolling through insect exhibits in museums, such as that of Smithsonian
Institute's Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., also featured in
Silence of the Lambs. We are especially intrigued when deadly insects are
showcased, though we're definitely glad they're behind the glass! Insects are necessary and good, just usually
unpleasant for human beings!
No comments:
Post a Comment