I don’t like bugs. This is somewhat of a new development. Perhaps it would be more true to say that I don’t like bugs in America. In the UK bugs have been raised properly, to respect the proper size standards for such creatures, and with a few exceptions are kind enough to stay out of your way and be delightfully non-toxic.
My youthful experience of bugs was largely contained to the common house fly (bluebottles might be noisy as hell, but they’re usually noisy over on a window, and not too close to me), gnats (which might be annoying and bite you, but we’ll get to that), and harvest spiders (which primarily hung out on the ceiling of my bedroom and were kind enough to keep the number of gnats down). Of course there were caterpillars, ladybirds (which is the correct name, for any American readers who feel compelled to tell me I mean “ladybugs”), etc., etc. but everything you came across seemed to be pretty innocuous and often outside.
Fast-forward to living in the States and I have to deal with cockroaches. They’re not the main thing I want to talk about here, so to make this easy, if you don’t live in a country where they’re prevalent, go back and watch the original Men in Black film. They’re exactly like that but worse. I don’t know whether seeing that film in my formative years gave me a more visceral reaction to them, or if they truly are as bad as I think they are. Either way, if there’s one in our house, my partner is the one dealing with them while I hide in another room.
Roaches, while unpleasant, aren’t dangerous as such, and if you live in the American South aren’t even necessarily a sign of bad hygiene. Seeing one or even more can often only signify that you’ve made the questionable decision to live in the American South, where in the summer months you play the fun game of “am I sweaty, or is it just so humid that the air is damp.” But I had heard stories of the wildlife out here, and it had put me on edge. I understood that it wasn’t as bad as Australia, but there were venomous snakes, various biting bugs, and I’d had perhaps too much of an explanation of what a brown recluse spider was and what “necrotizing” meant. So pardon me if I’m a little jumpy at times.
I mentioned gnats earlier. As far as I can tell, these hold a similar place in the hearts and minds of the British to that of mosquitos for the Americans. Except mosquitos are so much worse. If you get bitten by a gnat you might be “a bit itchy,” but with a mosquito you’re going to have a raised welt and know about it for days. Nothing is quite as bad as realizing that you’ve shut a mosquito in your car and have to choose between totaling your car while trying to persuade it to leave through a window, or continuing to watch the road and being bitten for your trouble.
While less famous than the roach, I want to acknowledge a couple of hard workers before I get to my main topic. In the UK, ants are one of the few bugs I’ll get away from fast. I know they bite. I know red ant bites are very painful. But I also know that ants are tiny. So when one day a few months into living in upstate New York, I saw an ant walk across my desk that had the nerve to be over an inch long with a shiny black carapace, I ran to the other side of my apartment and started googling how deadly these things were. For everyone’s reference, they’re fine. Unless you’re made of wood. Turns out this demon was a carpenter ant and might have wanted to eat my desk, but was no real danger to me. In a similar vein, I walked out of my back door a couple of months back and noticed a pile of sawdust on the ground. Looking up, I saw a hole in the top of the doorframe. It was at least three quarters of an inch across, if not more, and I began to wonder why one of my neighbors had felt it necessary to drill a hole in my house. I called my partner down and was told that carpenter bees are a thing. Apparently a single bee can quite happily just pretend to be an electric drill in an afternoon and mess up your woodwork. (We should still save the bees though.)
The thing I really want to focus on here are spiders. (Yes. I’m aware that spiders aren’t technically bugs, but they’re grouped together in my mind enough that I think of them in the same way and the title “Bugs!” worked better. I look forward to seeing the comments telling me I’m wrong, and I hope any such commenter will enjoy their tomato-laden fruit salad.) Now, as I mentioned, I had heard stories about spiders and how some were pretty dangerous. So when I got to the States and was living with my partner, we would fairly regularly have a conversation that went something like this:
“Ahh! Come look at this huge spider!”
“What type is it?”
“I don’t know. Is it dangerous?”
*Partner looks at it* “It’s just an orb weaver. Calm down. They’re harmless and eat bugs.”
“If you say so.”
The number of times I freaked out over orb weavers might be a little ridiculous. But, in my defense, they come in many different colors, patterns, and sizes. At one point I found one that at first glance I thought was a tarantula. If you’re not familiar with orb weavers, I’ll give you a moment to go and google image that. Ho hum. You back? Cool. Cute, right?
So, in August, I’ll have lived stateside full time for five years. Wait. Really? Oh. Wow… Okay I’m good. Right. Five years. So I’ve settled down a little bit. Have coping mechanisms. And now I say “hi” to the little orb weavers on our porch that keep the mosquito population down. I’ve not been bitten by a spider, and I’m pretty cool with them. So when I stepped into my garage this morning and my foot caught a bit on a spider’s web, I didn’t think much of it. Turned around, saw the little guy, said “hi,” and carried on my way. Then, this evening, I was talking to my partner and thought to mention it.
“Oh, by the way, I stepped into the garage earlier and my foot caught on a web so dense that it actually pulled me back a bit and I had to stop and shake it off. Weird, right? So just keep an eye out going in there, think it’s just an orb weaver. Black one with some red on it.”
“Black? With some red on it?” she asks. “And a strong web?”
“Yeah,” I say, paying little attention.
“Near ground level?”
“Yeah,” I say, still oblivious.
“That sounds like a black widow.”
And guess what, folks! It was! Five years without a single sighting, all so that I could become just complacent enough about bugs in this country that I would shrug it off as harmless. I’ve restrained myself from burning down my property so far. I do feel a little validated in my distaste for bugs now, which is nice. And yeah, it’ll be my partner sorting this one out, too.
Photo captured by my partner.
Spider not captured by my partner.
Spider ran into the wall and still at large.
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I still have never seen a black widow, nor did I know how to identify them. So thanks for that. But oh do I hate roaches. I was visiting my parents in Hawaii many years ago and my sister’s cat chased one into my bed (while I was in it). I did not sleep that night. I’m generally okay with bugs as long as they leave me alone, but roaches are never okay. There’s a far side cartoon with the guy who sweeps the reptile house having a cumulative attack of the heebie-jeebies – that’s me with roaches. Also with crawdads that are supposed to be dead but aren’t.
Ahhhhhh. No.
I usually fall asleep fairly easily, but having seen a roach and then not knowing where it is remains one of the few things that will keep me awake. If it were in the bed…. just no.
Update! The black widow was humanely relocated to the wooded vacant lot across the street.
YAY!
Ha! Hilarious post. I’m both impressed and concerned by your complacency. I’ve lived in the American south my entire life and roaches and spiders are still no laughing matter! I absolutely cannot deal with roaches and most spiders get intense scrutiny to determine their level of danger. I do hope y’all find that black widow. Yikes. Glad it didn’t bite you!
Well, lesson learned on complacency. From now on, all creatures with more than four-legs will once again be given a wide berth while someone else inspects them.