Box Elder

Box

Elder

Bugs

We played with them when we were little. Holding them in our cupped hands and giggling as their legs tickled our palms. Then we released them. They swarmed a broken old tree that we called the Boxelder Bug Tree.

Now

They

Fly

everywhere

Their wings illuminated by the afternoon sun

Brown spots against the rays

When

I want to go

inside -

There she sits (or is it a he?) on the sliding door.

She sees me examining her. Her eyes watch mine

Watches my movements, on guard

I just want her to get off the glass door so

I can go in

alone.

She crawls to a crevice. Okay, game on, little critter!

I move the door, and she comes out of the crevice,

then she leaves, sensing my irritation.

I won't squish her.

She knows that

I think

Why aren't the tree frogs and the birds eating them?

I realize that I'd rather have her flying around inside,

than the damned fly that has zoomed for days.

I even opened the door for a bit one day hoping the

dumbass would leave.

Nope, the fly is still there and very cagey, very quick.

Maybe dumbass isn't the right term for a fly that's managed to hang around when I want him gone.

Don't leave the door open, I told the hubby

I keep telling him

I don't care if it is hard to open the door with your hands full; don't leave it open, not even a few inches.

Stop it.

The boxelders are crawling on the house, walking on the windows,

looking for an entry point.

When my daughter was a baby, she slept in my room near a tall window draped in white sheer curtains.

She screamed one day, my baby, and when I went to her,

the boxelder bugs were all over the curtains and in her crib, surrounding and frightening her.

They must have looked so big to her.

The vacuum worked.

As a toddler, I took her to a river with friends, and horseflies swirled around her, and she ran screaming, totally petrified, and freaked out.

The box

elder

bugs

had traumatized my girl.

Keep the door

shut.

Examine the

entry

before you

try to

enter;

shut.

no door cracked open.

look

in the cracks

watch out.