Sunday, September 26, 2010

It Always Begins with One

The other day I happened to look up from my work and, glancing at the window, saw this bug crawling along the outside of the pane. Not one to pass up a photographic opportunity, I made use of my camera’s close-up function and, pressing the lens to the glass, took a number of pictures before the bug seemed to be alarmed by the attention (“The paparazzi again! Will I never escape them and live a private life??”) and scuttled away. I was intrigued but not alarmed.

But perhaps I should have been. The next day the Post had an article on the influx of stink bugs in the DC area; I’m not sure if there are more in the district generally than there have been in the past, or if they’re just coming inside people’s homes to stay for the winter in larger number than usual. Either way, there are apparently a lot of them hoping to hole up inside, and if they’re startled, or stepped on, they emit a smell quite similar to that of unwashed feet.

The photos in the paper looking disturbingly like the bug I’d cheerfully photographed on my window. Now I’m less sure that it was a simple visitor and more worried that it was an advanced scout.


{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

2 comments:

Anca said...

Isn't it funny that in a nation where race problems and public education and joblessness are continuing, if not increasing, problems, the newspapers deflect our worries onto bugs? Bedbugs, stink bugs, not the super-rich bugs sucking us dry. . . .

Naomi said...

There're often lots of stinkbugs at my grandmother's house in Virginia. As long as you don't step on them, they don't cause problems...and I think they're kinda pretty.

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