They are big and ugly, look like inch-and-a-half-long cockroaches, although, as my gentle Uncle Bob pointed out, they are not vermin, merely “outside’ bugs that get inside.
This is the story of one such insider.
While I was seeking refuge from the hurricane in a very clean and comfortable and safe home in the Florida Panhandle, a palmetto bug suddenly appeared late at night in front of the refrigerator. My friend Diane came upon it, gasped, and, in one of the optical tricks that befalls us in times of stress, thought she was seeing a small mouse. Palmetto bugs can appear that formidable.
Before either of us could act, it scurried under the refrigerator. (Like their cousins the verminous roaches, the magisterial Palmetto bug is fast — and, being big, has bigger, longer legs and thus can move faster than a speeding bullet.
So, we assumed that was the last we’d see of Big P.B. (Palmetto Bug), for he would doubtless find a way into the woodwork or the rafters and never be seen again.
But, no. The next day, in broad daylight, Diane came upon him(her?) trying to get out the slider to the porch. Well, they are “outside” bugs after all. Had I been there, I’d have simply opened the slider and allowed (him) to escape into his habitat. (Of course, at the time, it was raining and blowing out as the northern most effects of Hurricane Milton were lashing t he Panhandle. So, our friend The Big Bug (whom I will call Little Milton) would have escape into hideous conditions. But then, insects doubtless have their way of coping with the elements.
Diane knew a compassionate exit would be unlikely to ensue upon Little Miltons discovery. He’d scurry off at lightning speed — inside the house. So, she took a shoe and smashed the blazes out of Little Milton, presumably fatally wounding him. She cast a tissue over him as he trashed, legs up like Kafka’s famous humanoid roach Gregor Samsa following his metamorphosis. When I woke up for the day, she asked me to pick him and send him to a watery death in the hopper.
But when I lifted the tissue shroud, ole Little Milton was — gone!! Yes, though no doubt mortally wounded, he’d escaped to somewhere in that large house. Probably gone somewhere to die.
But, lo and behold, an hour later, who should turn up in the hallway, the equal of a mile away in insect terms but ugly Little Milton. I now had no will to kill him, respecting his survivor instincts and toughness. But he was clearly lame and broken and no longer able to scurry in that lightening way of Big Ugly Scary, Disgusting Bugs. So, I resolve to capture him in a jar or on a piece of paper and send him back to nature. But Little Milton misinterpreted my intentions, as bugs will. (I mean what bug thinks a person actually intends to capture and rehabilitate them, as a puzzled Woody Allen surmised in Annie Hall?) But while I tarried, Little Milton escape out of sight again into the bathroom. There I saw him hobbling along the back wall, pathetically vulnerable and exposed, pausing to rest and, he probably hoped, hid by the door jam. But then, tragically, after repeatedly refusing my offer of a sheet of paper he could cling to as an ambulance, he rushed headlong out into the middle of the room. I had no choice but to squash him with repeated blows of a shoe (I hate stepping on Big Bugs). It took three could slams. We know now why bugs will inherit the earth. They are tough, by God! Milton was flushed down the long john pipes to oblivion.
I actually felt sorry that it had come to that.
Then, tonight, back in my regular domocile, hundreds of miles to the south, I let the dog in from outside and, as I stood in the Florida room, saw something Big and Ugly scurry to the middle of the carpet. It was either Little Milton resurrected or his distant cousin abiding and surviving where he had fallen in combat.
I advance, but the bug scurried — its disgusting how they scurry! –under a chair.
I decided not to pursue. He was almost “outside” and might find his way there before the night was out.
In Little Miltons honor, I issued a reprieve.
Live on, Big, Ugly Bug. In Florida, your name is legion. We’ll never kill you all.
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