I’m sitting here lounging in a camping chair in my own living room. Aaahhhh. How nice it is to finally have a home where I can unpack all my stuff and decorate from the ground up.

I’ve found that I share the place with a number of “Tennessee Critters”. Mostly spiders, but also a few other things I can’t quite identify yet. Learning curve’s in full throttle these days…. new weather patterns, new traffic patterns, new language — sheesh! definintely a new language — and yes, new bugs to learn as well. I had one particular bug I just could not figure out. He looked like a centipede, sort of… had that shape and all the bazillion legs. But his legs were much longer than a centipede’s. He moved pretty dang fast too.

The first night I met him, we had a little disagreement. I told him I’m the one paying rent. He told me he’d been here first. We finally agreed to go to our separate corners, me to my air mattress by the window, he to the back of my walk-in closet. Why didn’t I give him the boot right then, you ask? Well, I’ll tell ya. He kept to the top parts of the wall, very close to the crown molding and ceiling, and I just didn’t have anything tall enough to stand on where I could reach him and squash him flat. However, tonight he got brave… or stupid. Not sure which… He ventured down to the lower parts of the closet, and must’ve caught a quick ride on something I grabbed out because he came flying back toward the closet as fast as his multi-legs could carry him — and that was pretty dang fast, I tell you! He looked like just a black blur scampering across the carpet. Scared the be-jeebers outa me!

He came to a halt on the side of a large black Creative Memories tote bag. Even with the adreniline rushing through my body, I knew it was now or never. So I grabbed up one of my chunky-high-healed shoes, and, apologizing all the while, squished him like a bug…
which, of course he was…
a bug… that is…

Anyway… I left his remains strewn across the rug as a warning to other freeloading bugs: A new tenant’s in town, kickin’ butt and takin’ names.

Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me. I’m not, by nature, a violent person. Well, not entirely anyway. I generally try to find a way to co-habitate with all God’s creatures, no matter how weird-looking or many-legged they may be. Most of them serve a helpful purpose… though, I’m at times hard-pressed to figure out how helpful their purpose really is.

Mosquitos, for example. I just can’t help but wonder, “what in the world was God thinkin’ when he came up with them???” And flies… what’s that about? Were they part of the fall? You know, “all of creation groaning,” and all that…?? (see Romans 8 for more on this subject). ‘Cause frankly, I can’t quite figure out what flies are supposed to do, exactly. Perhaps they were just made as food for spiders.

I don’t mind spiders. Except for the fact that they seem to find me either tasty fare, or they just get pissed off at me during the night… Inevitably I end up with some doozy bites, and I can never figure out just when or where I got them. Sneaky little critters, spiders.

Bees. I hate bees. Talk about a necessary evil. They give us honey, which is good. I love honey. But they buzz around and sting us, which is bad. I hate being stung.

And then there are wasps… what was God thinkin’ there???? “Let’s just make these crazy carnivorous mean-and-nastys just to teach my people to remain calm in the face of angry danger.” …. or perhaps they are just part of the fall too. Maybe they were docile creatures before Eve took matters into her own hands. And now they’re just really pissed off at humans in general for messing up their garden.

At any rate, bees and wasps send me into orbit. I run yelling and flailing and generally making an idiot out of myself. I realize, as Nina has pointed out to me far too many times, that this just gets the bees and wasps all upset and more likely to sting me. Not to mention I look like an idiot, to the average passerby, running around flailing my arms and yelling. They can’t see the bullet-sized terrorist zooming after me, stinger armed, locked and loaded. Admittedly, remaining calm seems a much more logical thing to do — and especially brave in the face of such danger. But come on. Honetly, how many people actually think or act logically when in panick mode? I don’t think I can be blamed for my actions in these situations.

However, I did act quite calmy last week when a wasp found its way into Stan and Holly’s home (where I was staying until Friday) and I am still quite proud of myself for my actions. He was beating himself senseless against the glass of the back door. You could pratically here him saying, “Darn! I. Can. See. It. Right. There. Why. Can’t. I. Get. To. It?????” I was scared to swat at him, for fear he’d turn that dogged determination currently fixated on the the door on me instead. That’s more attention than I care to draw from a wasp.

So I grabbed up a clear plastic cup and a piece of cardboard, trapped him against the glass with the cup and slid the cardboard under it.

It was then I discovered up-close and personal what “madder than a wet hornet” really looks like. Oh boy, was he mad! And powerful too. He hit the cardboard and cup with such force at times I thought he’d knock it out of my hands. That’s why I just left the cup, still upside down out on the patio. Poor guy. I still can’t believe he didn’t knock himself silly hitting the cup with all that force. I finally felt guilty I’d left him trapped under that cup in the hot sun. So I went back out, quickly tipped the cup over — pointing it in the opposite direction from me!! — and ran like mad back into the house. I don’t know where he went, but I never saw him again. Hopefully he’s forgotten what I look like by now. And, given I’m so far south from Hendersonville now, I think I’m safe from retribution…. I hope. But I’ll sure be glad when fall arrives and the bees and wasps go to sleep for a while.

Oh, good grief. Another mulit-legged creature is making it’s way across my living room floor. I gotta go make an example of another Tennessee bug.