It’s hard to believe that September is almost over already. Well, actually, it isn’t that hard to believe, but it still feels like school has barely started. We are almost halfway through the semester, at the part where academic obligations accumulate and motivation disappears. I, for one, am as unmotivated as ever, which is no surprise. If you’re reading this looking for some profound revelation about getting yourself back in gear and powering through schoolwork, then stop, because I really have nothing to say on that. What I’m getting at is that I think bugs are cute.
Well, sometimes. Now, I can understand why other people wouldn’t find them cute, since they’re kind of small, you don’t know where they’ve been and they can get into things that you don’t want them touching. Maybe a fly landed on your sandwich when you were a child and you’ve held a grudge ever since. It’s okay; I understand. A lot of people just don’t like them simply because they’re annoying. Yeah, they are, but children are also annoying, and you don’t really see people spraying poison to get rid of them (well, I certainly hope you don’t).
Some bugs are nuisances, sure, like mosquitoes, ants and termites, but they all serve some sort of ecological purpose. Except fleas. I hate fleas, and I don’t care what purpose they serve because they’re horrible and hard to smash. Fleas are pure evil wrapped in a crunchy exoskeleton. Fleas are not cute. At least mosquitoes have the courtesy to be easy to kill. If you want to smash a flea, you’ve got to catch the little freak between your fingers and break its little body apart with your fingernails. How annoying!
Okay, okay, you want me to get to the point, but the point is that I have no point. I know that a lot of people will think I’m crazy for this, but I think spiders are really cute and awesome. They eat all of the more annoying bugs, and they’re generally pretty happy to just leave people alone. The females also eat their mates, which is pretty hard-core, in my opinion. On the other hand, a lot of spiders are poisonous and seem to enjoy hiding in unexpected places like couch cushions, where they can easily jump out and surprise you when you’re just trying to read a book. That’s pretty rude of them. Maybe if spiders had better manners, then people wouldn’t hate them so much.
Arthropods in general have very bad manners, actually. They never knock when entering your room, nor even introduce themselves. Also, I’m pretty sure that touching someone else’s food without their permission isn’t looked kindly upon in society. Arthropods need to really work on their manners, I guess.
Lauren Schroeter is a junior majoring in geology and religion.
