Insection

I have a weakness for non-human living things.  It's not that I think any human's life isn't special or important, I just feel there's just too many of us on Earth right now.  With my weakness for non-human living things, I go out of my way to save them.  Any of you out there save spiders, centipedes, moths, etc. (Uncle Rob, you don't count, as you probably have to kill scorpions or be killed by them), or do you merely mash them into oblivion because of their many legs, manic movements or stinging bites?  On a side note, I actually despise moths, but I don't kill them, I just don't like their strange dust, furry, soft bodies, and erratic movements.  You will literally see me run screaming like a little girl from a moth, though I did actually save one the other day from the back of my car.  It took me about 10 minutes to stop jumping whenever the blasted thing moved to get away from me, but I finally got him out; made my girlfriend late for work and everything.  It wanted to tuck away in a remote part of my rear window and roast to death during the 90 degree Minnesota summer - an untimely end it would have been for him.  Luckily, fate put him up against me and he lived.  Moving on, then.

Often times I consider three choices when encountering a bug.  Do I kill them, leave them be, or gingerly capture them and release them outside?  Let's go over the options, shall we?  After all, this is my writing outlet :).

Killing them usually involves the least amount of work, unless doing so results in bodily juices and/or blood (sometimes from another human being, like from a mosquito, for example) to smear on your walls, carpeting, or arm; then you've got a fine mess to tend after.  If you choose this route, keep that in mind.  In our always-on, 24/7 society, this is the most favored route - it's easy (there are millions of the buggers out there anyways, what's one less, right?), if you are the male or male role in your relationship, and your girlfriend/wife/husband/partner/significant other dislikes them, and you deal with it, you become the big strong hero/ine - and possibly get some lovin' as a result - and finally, if not most importantly, it allows you to execute your primal violent need to kill stuff.  I don't like to kill them, because I don't see it as logical.  I would only kill something for sustenance, so I'm not going to kill a bug, and they probably serve a useful biological function that benefits me anyways.  Most insects, arachnids and around-the-house crawly things eat others like it that usually prey on we, humans.  Did you know there is approximately one species of wasp that preys on every other species of insect out there?

This brings us to option numero dos: leave them be.  Now, I happen to spend my life with someone who is not afraid of squash a friendly invertebrate, so if I decide to leave one be, I have to consider this.  Most of the time, she will ask me to perform option 3 (sounds kinky, ey?), since she knows I will always do it anyways, but still, if I'm not around, she gives the bug a few minutes to disappear or meet its end.  I find this absolutely adorable, because she will actually tell the poor thing, "You have 10 minutes to leave!  I don't want to kill you, but I will!"  Usually this isn't the best option either, since a house is a desolate desert when it comes to insect food (the exception is for those wood eaters).  Most houses are equipped to stop insects from entering (although they always find a way, don't they?) and if they happen to get in, the owners of said house put out horrible chemicals designed to destroy them.  (Have kids?  Want them getting into this chemical and accidentally digesting it?  I vote no!)  So it's a painful death either way - starve or die of poison.

This brings me to option 3.  This is my favorite option, because it generally saves a life (I'll explain in a moment), makes me feel good, and allows the insect to return to follow its biological urges.  I say generally, because there is always a catch.  Once outside, you could be placing it in the midst of its predators.  I generally don't look around and say, "Oh, yes, a ravenous wasp is awaiting you mere feet away, my arachnid fellow, I'll find a different spot for you."  I just set them in the grass or flowers and let that be that.  You could consider its life span as well - most insects don't have the longest life spans.  Keeping all these things in mind, is it more human to smear an insects life blood all over your shoe, or to let it have a chance to survive in the dangerous unfair world we all live in?  I'll leave it up to you to decide.  Just remember, if you kill the spider that makes Spiderman who he is, the world's end will be nigh!

Can I say too, that I didn't fathom this post being this long.  I need to write more, apparently, because this must have been pent up for some time.  I also imagined that I had a British accent while writing this.  Thus the words "blasted", "bugger" and the phrase, "moving on, then."  I should have thrown a bullocks in there or two...