Sitting around a campfire one night with my husband, Steve, and brother-in-law, Jimmy R, I engaged Jimmy R in a lengthy philosophical conversation. The topic of conversation started as a discussion about reincarnation. It devolved, as our philosophical conversations tend to do, from there. As I stated to Jimmy at the onset, “I am not opposed to the idea of reincarnation; after all, I purposefully immersed myself in the teachings of yoga. However, to be clear, I don't believe we come back as other things, like cats or trees or bugs. I refuse to accept that.” 

I deem bugs to be the worst life form. “One must accumulate plenty of bad karma to be rendered a bug,” I added. I feel zero concern when one dies. If a bug lands on me, I will beat it to death. “It's best not to sit too close to me in the outdoors,” I warned. “If a June bug caught itself in my hair, one or both of us could end up in the middle of that blazing fire that you just sprayed with accelerant.”

I’ve come close to breaking a leg trying to get one out that had lodged itself in the nape of my neck once. As soon as I felt it buzzing its wing under my ponytail, I lept from my seat and started jumping around like a football player trying to evade a tackle. I was flailing my arms and screaming like I’d caught on fire. It was horrible. I still have night terrors about it. Let a bug invade my living space, and I will spray it with insecticide until it gasps its last breath in a pool of toxic liquid. Very satisfying actually. For me, it’s a legit survival of the fittest. It’s a base instinctual reaction for me. Given that, I don't believe my karma will be adversely affected by the occasional slaughter of an invasive species. It’s me or them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a bug vigilante. I’m not on the hunt for them on a regular basis. I only get mad cow disease brain when they invade my private personal spaces, including and especially if they intrude upon my personage. I have the right to defend myself from all disgusting, disease-caring vermin. With the exception of ladybugs and butterflies. But that’s it. All is fair in love and my war on bugs. 

So yes, I hate roaches, mosquitoes, spiders…yeah, yeah, yeah, they eat other bugs...do it somewhere else. I don’t scope them up with a paper plate and free them into the ether. I should also state I’m not a moth fan. I have sucked many an ugly moth into our turbocharged 1980s Kirby vacuum cleaner. That machine is an animal in its own right. I also do not cater to ants marching around my kitchen counters. You won’t hear me address any little mice pooping in my cabinet with, “Here little guy, have some butter with those bread crumbs.” No way, and I’m not making them little jackets or hats either. There is no crafting comfy beds for them out of empty matchboxes. That’s how they hook you in the Cinderella story. She’s kind to mice. If mice are your only friends, you should rethink your life plan sister. And by the way, they can’t sew ball gowns, alright?

But I have to say that the ‘beastsies’ are the absolute worst! Anything with more than 999 legs and slithers like a snake is a problem. We’ve all encountered at least one in our lifetime. The big mommas have maybe 60,000 legs and can sit up and look around. I’m talking about centipedes. Again, don’t start with the, “they kill other invasive bugs, mer, mer, mer, mer, blah, blah.” Ask my husband. I have been known to get out of bed at midnight to retrieve my kitchen ladder from the 1st floor and seek out the 1000-pound Kirby that my husband bought from a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman 100 years ago; that thing won’t die no matter how many times I’ve ‘accidentally’ dropped in down the staircase. He’s woken a few times over the years to find me balancing precariously on that ladder, holding the two-ton Kirby in one hand, the hose attachment in my other hand, trying to reach my ceiling where the beastie hangs upside down, watching me. All while my inner Gandolf bellows, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!” I do take great satisfaction out of sucking those little bastards off said ceiling into a pit of filthy dirt and dog hair.

But I’m prepared to face the music. If I arrive at the pearly gates, and it turns out I've been naive about reincarnation into a bug thing, I have a plan. If St. Peter pulls out my rap sheet to confront me for being a mass-murdering bug serial killer, and my penance is to return to earth as a bug, I will execute said plan. I'm prepared to find the most annoying person possible and go right for their face. I will buzz around their nose and dive-bomb them like a Kamikaze pilot on his final mission. I will pester them until their own instincts kick in, and they murdalize me. I will persist until they smash me out of the hell of being stuck in the body of a blood-sucking life form. It may take going through a few do-gooders who might attempt to scoop me up to ‘free’ me into the wilds of their backyard, but I will not be deterred. “Have you seen what happened to scientist Seth Brundle in ‘The Fly’ Jimmy? I have. It's Not pretty.” I shuddered. “I can still hear the tensy tiny voice of the fly/boy, “Help me…help me…help me.” I shuddered, “he begs the man who has stolen his woman to kill him with a rock. I’m not getting caught in a spider’s web and spun into a cocoon, set aside for a midnight spider snack.” And don’t get me started on spiders. I could tell you stories…