butt to the bug

Lucrecia asked of a recent post: "What the eff are butt-bugs?"

I've decided I may as well settle this in a larger forum than the comments, which only one person (me) may read, so that my entire readership (Lucrecia and maybe Dennis) may learn. Sorry, self-deprecating quips about this blog being an exercise in navel-gazing just never seem to get old.

Butt-bugs are like my students. They started out being the bane of my existence here in Kona, but have oddly endeared themselves to me, perhaps because I've realized just how benign they are in comparison to the other evils out there, like giant flying cockroaches, Blackwater, centipedes, and corporate lawyers like those portrayed in Michael Clayton.

I believe the common name for the butt-bug is "earwig;" however, when we first encountered them shortly after moving here, in utter terror due to their shiny black carapaces and forked scorpion-like tails (or are those their heads?), we first ran screaming, then quickly named them butt-bugs because, well....hmm. I guess because they have weird butts? Also, it was around the time I saw a bratty toddler on Supernanny call her mother "Butt pie," which caused us to start calling each other that, which caused "butt" to enter into our vocabulary to a remarkable degree that has only increased.

At certain times of year, B.B.s are everywhere: dead ones on the floor and in the windowsill, live ones milling around wherever they please. One morning I found one stuck in the water gauge of the coffee maker. We never used it again. The funniest BB experience was when one hitched a ride to school with me on the outside of my car. Our evening conversations began to prominently feature our respective discoveries of butt-bugs during the day--in the lid of my Ziploc container at lunch, or worse. "They've hit the bedroom."

Ben and I have both had nightmares about them. I've lived a real-life nightmare when I suddenly realized I was surrounded on all sides by them in the shower.

But they endear themselves to me by never biting, and by running away cutely when I chase them (but not so fast that I can't catch them), not being able to fly, and looking sort of like tiny toys. All much like my students.

So that, Dear Lucrecia/Reader, is what butt bugs mean to me. I don't wish I could take them with me to Seattle, but nor do I wish to destroy them completely. Because who knows what we could have to deal with in their place? Much like...you know.