The End of Days is Nigh. And Someone Needs to Come Over and Kill a Bug for Me.

(Note:  This was partly written Saturday afternoon, so please excuse some no-longer correct verb tenses.)

There have been some seriously cool bugs.

Jiminy Cricket is a pretty neat fellow, if perhaps a bit preachy.

Chester, the very talented headliner in A Cricket in Times Square.

Charlotte and her fantastic web.

The cockroach in WALL-E.

Buzz, the Cheerios mascot, if you're stretching.

This is not one of those bugs.

A truly enormous beetle has taken up residence on the suspension chain of my ceiling light.  It looks a bit like an elongated beetle that flies.  Or the First Horseman of the Apocalypse, Pestilence.  I haven't made up my mind yet.  Whatever.

It is taunting my dog.  No, seriously.  It's been here a few hours now, and I definitely see its pattern.

It reposes on the chain, standing upright on its hindmost legs, for long stretches of time while Prada growls at it.  (Prada is very brave, you know.)  Then just when her growls die out, the bug thrusts its thorax at us like an enthusiastic Elvis impersonator.  When the thorax wagging is no longer driving Prada quite mad enough, the bug flies down to the glass shade--always on the side facing us.  Bastard.  Eventually, it crawls back up onto the chain to start the process over again.

For about twenty minutes, Prada, Stink, and I all watched the bastard bug, transfixed.  I finally started a movie.  Between the bug and Prada's strong reaction to it, I was starting to (ear)wig.  Unfortunately, I chose a movie with dinosaurs.  When they started roaring, Prada almost fell off the bed, convinced the vile beast was on the attack.  Poor girl couldn't decide if she was cowering on my lap or valiantly defending me.

When the movie finished, I turned off the overhead light, foolishly thinking my bedside lamp wasn't bright enough to attract the monster's attention.  I was wrong.  It dive-bombed my face, at which point Prada and I both squealed like the little girls we are.

So I turned on the bathroom light, turned off the lights everywhere else, and hid under the covers till morning.

I am so badass.


(True:  The bug turned up the next morning in my bathtub.  And then I killed it, because I totally am badass.)