No Bug Buffets For Me

It’s pretty common knowledge that a large portion of the Earth’s population eats bugs. In many areas insects are the major source of protein and are even considered a delicacy. We also know that experts say that eating more insects could alleviate some of the world’s hunger problems because the are very rich in nutrition. But I’ll have to pass on the bug buffet. Too many creepy memories.

I’ve written before about mosquitoes being my nemesis, but that’s not the problem here. It would take a thousand of those pesky little critters to make one bite, and the only nutrition component they’d contain would be the blood they’d sucked out of somebody, so they’re not a viable food source. My bad buggy memories are of the common cockroach, or water-bug as it’s sometimes known.

When I was a newlywed, we rented a furnished apartment that was actually a part of a small house, and our landlady lived in the other part. We soon found out about some of the negatives of this arrangement. For example, the lamps had 40 watt bulbs, too dim to read by, so we invested in a couple of 100 watt bulbs and replaced them. Sounds simple, right? But when we got home from work the next day, the landlady told us that wasn’t allowed because it would raise her electric bill. When we asked how she even knew about our new bulbs, she got red in the face and said she had a right to inspect the place at any time.

But no annoyance topped the bugs. As near as we could tell, she’d made no attempt to do anything about the roaches, and it must have seemed like bug Shangri-la to them. We complained but the landlady shrugged us off. We started trying things to get rid of them, including bug spray and various home remedies like spreading borax along the baseboards, and even bought some Roach Motels. But the roaches laughed at us.

Everything eventually hits a final straw – you know, the one that breaks the poor proverbial camel’s back – and with us it wasn’t coming home every night to a room of roaches scattering in the light, crunching underfoot. And it wasn’t hearing them scurrying around late at night, having a roach rodeo. No, it was when I was lying in bed one night, drifting off to sleep, and felt a tickle in my hair. I instinctively reached up and came away with a big roach. We moved out the next day.