Florida Bugs

Without contact lenses or my glasses, I could legally be given a white cane and a cool dog. As I sat on the couch without either, a huge lump moved across the carpet in the middle of the room. Since the blur was at least a dozen feet away, I quickly realized that whatever was there had to be large.

I’m a Man, and I capitalize the word for a reason. A man might be afraid of bugs. A Man, never. When I quickly grabbed my glasses, the huge crawling blur came into immediate focus. I was on a business trip and sitting in a condo on the Florida east coast, where I was beginning to understand that bugs are the size of small California poodles.

I was not afraid (not really), but I was filled with a tremendous amount of respect for a creature large enough to carry off my infant son, like some giant condor swooping out of the trees. I rolled up the Florida Today that I had been reading to create a suitable weapon and brought it down on the bug with all of my might in several quick strokes. Wham! Wham! Wham!

The survival instinct shoots adrenalin through a body. I was Popeye, after eating a can of spinach. My heart was beating quickly, when I backed away from what should have been an ex-bug. Instead, it flew within inches of my left eye, where I’m not sure that my glasses would have provided much protection. At this point, it’s possible that my breaths were louder than the news anchor on the blaring television. I should also admit that I now owed the Cuss Jar $1.25 from a rapid succession of words that I fired at the bug that just disappeared down the hall. (They had the same success as my newspaper, merely bouncing off its broad back.)

I was on the hunt. I shut off the tv with the remote, thinking that anything that large would have to make a noise—either buzzing, the flapping of wings, or the bug equivalent of taunting the hunter. The condo was now silent, except for the pounding in my chest. Thankfully, I found the creature on the bathroom wall. Not worried about the condition that I might leave the wall, I proceeded to beat the bug until I was exhausted, and the newspaper was torn, shredded, and flapping noisily with each stroke.

I enjoyed Entomology 101 in college, and I used those skills to determine what kind of insect met its demise with the business section I was holding. This wasn’t a beetle, but a roach of some description. When I arrived at Cape Canaveral the following morning to tell everyone about my evening, they weren’t disgusted, as I had expected. They weren’t even surprised, at least not by the bug. They were, however, surprised at my surprise, as if this was a daily experience in Florida. However, my colleagues did want to make one clarification.

"It wasn’t a roach. It was a palmetto bug," they corrected me, as if that would make an important difference in whether or not I would ever return to their precious state.

"Oh, well excuuuuuse me. A…palmetto bug," I mimicked their condescendence by enunciating slowly like I was describing a fine new Porsche in my driveway. "Do they call them palmetto bugs because they barely fit across your palm?"

In an attempt to make me feel better, my friend decided that he would describe his incident that morning, which clearly was more disgusting than mine. His theory was that I would realize that palmetto bugs are no worse than an irritating blue-bottle fly buzzing around a picnic table.

"Let me tell you what happened to me," he said, and proceeded to paint a horrible vision of him in the shower where a huge spider the size of his fist jumped onto his chest. He killed it by brushing it to the floor with the back of his hand and stomping on it with his bare feet.

As I compared our two tales, I decided that I’m not Man enough for Florida. I’m happy to sit on my California patio, sipping my cold chardonnay, not worrying about defending my home from palmetto bugs or gigantic spiders.