By Ryan Berry
Ryan’s World
If there is one thing my wife dislikes more than my witty sarcasm it would probably be bugs. Big bugs, little bugs, cute bugs, ugly bugs, arachnids, insects – if it can be squished by your foot or swatted with a flip flop it will most likely “creep her out.”
Saying she is not very outdoorsy is a huge understatement. We bought a tent and went camping twice. Somebody got a great deal on a gently used tent. When we hold our outdoor movie nights with our projector and our 20-foot inflatable screen she will join us at the beginning, but if she gets one mosquito bite or even if she thinks she has been bitten she heads right back to the house to watch TikToks on her six-inch phone screen. It also gets a little dangerous with her out there next to the fire – mosquito repellent is flammable. With as much as she uses, it would only take a little spark to set her ablaze.
I’m not sure, but I think I saw a protest sign in the back of her closet that said, “Bring Back DDT And Kill the Mosquitoes – We Don’t Need Bald Eagles.” It seemed kind of wordy, but it was a big sign. I should also mention that birds are also on the list of things that “creep her out.”
Although outside bugs are a nuisance, it’s the bugs that sneak inside the house that make her scream and shiver.
Usually, our dogs will follow her to bed at night, but this time a stink bug either hitched a ride with her going up the stairs or greeted her when she got into the room – I’m not sure which. As I was getting snuggled under the covers, she was getting ready for bed. Out of nowhere she let out a huge shriek. Using her bare hands, and not a flip flop, she flicked the stink bug to somewhere else in the room. She did a little shiver dance and panicked, “I don’t know where I flicked it to.”
I told her she probably killed it when she flicked it. She was adamant that she did not. I didn’t say it out loud, but I was thinking with as loud as she screamed, she probably killed every bug in the house. That sound in their little ears made their little heads explode. The scream was like having one of those ultrasonic animal repellent things. That scream could have also repelled racoons, cats, snakes, deer, lions, bears, and elephants.
The two white mice we have living in a cage downstairs have not been the same since. They see her and scurry under the wood shavings. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the brown mouse that had been living under our couch since that day. Hmmmm! Maybe she should have screamed sooner, it would have saved us money on D-Con.
We laughed about it for a couple of minutes and joked about the stink bug laying eggs in her ear while she was sleeping before we both settled down.
I was on the verge of falling asleep when I thought I felt something on the back of my leg. I jumped higher and faster than a gazelle startled by a cheetah. If I had jumped any higher, I would have hit my head on the ceiling. I began brushing the back of my leg and then the bed from the head to the foot. The room was dark, so I had no idea if it was her friend or not. All I could think about were the eggs it was going to lay in my ear.
While I’m doing all of that, my beautiful wife was laughing hysterically.
After I finally came to my senses, I realized it was probably the sheet that was covering me up and the fan that was blowing on my feet. All it had to do was move the blanket a little to tickle the back of my leg.
I finally laid back down and wrestled with the thought of bug eggs in my ear. It took me another 30 minutes to get back to being on the verge of sleep. Every time I would get close, she would start laughing again.
